Universes' Finest
by Game2002
Summary: Several of the girls from Gensokyo find themselves in what appears to be the outside world, but since when is the outside full of costumed superheroes and supervillains? This is the story I've been building up all this time.
1. World's Finest

Reimu and her group were going to fly down to the ground when a portal appeared over their heads without a warning. They looked up and were surprised at what they saw. "What's happening now?!" the shrine maiden asked.

The girls felt themselves slowly being pulled towards the portal. They fought against it with no problem at first, but as the pulling force became stronger little by little, they found themselves moving towards it instead, even if they tried to fight against it.

"It's the same kind of portal activated by that Mother Box!" Rikako said while fighting against the pulling force. "But I left it inside the portal to let it get destroyed by the explosion! How is there a portal again?!"

While fighting against it, Iku noticed something happening down below, so she told the others to look. They looked and were surprised to see several people floating into the air, all of them being pulled towards the portal.

* * *

"What… What is happening?!" Marisa cried as she got carried towards the portal. Using her hakkero, she gave her broom an extra boost to escape it. She was making progress, but Cirno flew into her from below at a fast speed and knocked her off her broom. Both of them screamed as they got pulled towards the portal while spinning through the air. The broom and the hakkero joined them soon after.

* * *

Back in the Human Village, Yukari told everyone to quickly get inside her gap. The demon herself was inside the gap and holding onto its side to prevent being pulled up by the portal. Ran, who was also inside, asked her, "Have you seen Chen?"

"I haven't!" Yukari replied.

Ran looked out the portal and shouted, "Chen! Come in here quick! CHEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEN!"

"MISTRESS RAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAN!" screamed the voice of Chen, though it sounded like it came from very far away.

Hearing this, Ran looked around desperately for signs of her shikigami, but she didn't see her at all. "Chen! Is that you? Where are you? Chen! Chen! CHEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEN!" The nine-tailed fox demon wanted to go out to find her, but Yukari stopped her and told her that it was too dangerous.

* * *

"Why is this happening?! Just when I thought everything was over!" Reimu shouted. Even though she was already inside the portal, she still struggled to fly towards the exit before her eyes, but instead, she kept on getting pulled back. She looked around and saw people familiar to her struggling in vain to escape.

Sanae, Kokoro, Alice, Aya, the Prismriver Sisters, Suwako, Youmu, the residents of the Myouren Temple, Miko and her servants, and more…

Even rocks, fallen trees, building pieces, and animals were being pulled into the portal.

The shrine maiden turned to look at the sight of her homeland at the front again while reaching her hand towards it. She could do nothing but watch it move farther and farther away from her.

* * *

The Mother Box continued to short-circuit and tremble violently. It released even more smoke and sparks than before, and eventually, it exploded.

KABOOOOOOOOOOOM!

It was at that moment the portal disappeared as suddenly as it appeared, and everything in the midst of getting pulled into it fell back down.

Seeing that the coast was clear, Yukari reopened her gap, peeked out, and then stepped out after being sure that it was safe to do so. "What… What exactly happened just now…?" she asked in confusion.

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**Opening Theme  
Dreams Never Fade  
(vocal remix of A Dream Transcending Space-Time, by Seventh Heaven MAXION)**

A Game2002 Production

A TOUHOU PROJECT AND DC COMICS CROSSOVER

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_**UNIVERSES' FINEST**_

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**All Touhou characters and anything related belong to Team Shanghai Alice**

**All DC characters and anything related belong to DC Comics**

**Notable OCs will be mentioned**

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**Theme Ends**

* * *

**Chapter 1  
World's Finest**

* * *

Blue sky…

Such a sight usually meant all was calm and good.

The clouds were slowly floating through the sky in a way that when people lying on the grass down below saw them, they would feel relaxed and wish to be on them to take a comfortable nap. It might even remind one of a delicious cotton candy.

This quietness could've last for a long time, if it weren't for the fact that a space shuttle was shooting through the air in flames.

The space shuttle's return from space was anything but a successful one. A fault in the engine had caused the whole thing to erupt into flames as it was entering Earth's atmosphere. The three astronauts inside were panicking greatly while trying to get everything under control.

"There's nothing we can do!" one of the astronauts cried while trying to regain control of the space shuttle.

"What do we do?! We're all going to die at this rate!" another astronaut cried in panic.

"Calm down! Try to steer it towards the sea!" the third astronaut loudly said to his two companions. "That way, we won't have a rough landing, and we can also prevent casualties down below!"

"I can't! The controls aren't responding! Even the control wheel!" the first astronaut told him.

"We're gonna die! We're gonna die! WE'RE ALL GONNA DIE!" the second astronaut screamed.

The thought of their impending doom drove the first two astronauts crazy. Despite the third astronaut's effort to calm them down, they continued to panic.

Not wanting to give up so easily, the third astronaut told the first astronaut to get off his seat so that he could take over the controls. After placing his hands on the control wheel, he noticed something moving towards them, and it was moving at a fast speed. The speeding object zoomed past them with such a speed that all they could see was a red and blue blur. Suddenly, the whole place jerked violently.

"That… That must be Superman!" the third astronaut said in surprise.

Indeed, the bringer of hope had arrived to save the day.

The most powerful superhero in the world…

The man who was basically a god…

The Man of Steel…

Superman, the greatest hero in the world, and perhaps the universe…

Grabbing the wing of the space shuttle and pulling back as hard as he could, Superman tried his best to slow down the descent rate of the space shuttle, just enough for him to be able to stop the thing from the front without damaging it. Knowing the way physics worked, he knew very well that attempting to stop the space shuttle from the front right away could result in disaster. There was no way he could keep this thing in one piece if he flew into it from the front and stopped its movement just like that, not with it moving so fast. He had to slow down the space shuttle in some way first before he could try to stop it by pushing it from the front.

His method of doing so wasn't successful, however, as the wing was torn off when he pulled it. Realizing that trying to slow down the space shuttle by pulling its wings wasn't going to work, he had to come up with another way. He suddenly came up with the idea of flying below the space shuttle and pushing it upwards to stop its descent.

Superman flew underneath the space shuttle, placed his hand against the underside of it, and pushed it upwards. While doing so, he decided to take a look at the inside to see if everything was all right in there. Using his x-ray vision, he managed to tell that the astronauts were filled with joy that he had arrived to save him, and he was glad that they were all right.

He then turned around slightly to look at the space shuttle's engine and realized that something was wrong with it. Indeed, the engine were busted and burning, but since he had skills in the field of mechanics, he could tell that things were going to turn for the worse, as it was going to explode very soon!

"I don't think I can get the space shuttle to the ground and then evacuate them in time!" he desperately said in his head.

"Superman, need a hand?" asked a familiar and friendly voice. The Man of Steel turned to the side and saw a man dressed in a suit that was composed of green and black flying alongside him, and there was green aura around him.

"Hal! You have to get the astronauts inside out of there at once!" Superman desperately told him. "I checked the engine with my x-ray vision and found out that it will explode soon! I can't get this thing to the ground in time to evacuate them!"

"You can count on me! Just don't let this thing shake too much!" Hal Jordan, a member of the Green Lantern Corp, told him. While flying alongside the space shuttle at an equally fast speed, Hal fired a scorching, green beam at its side using his ring until he created a "door".

He quickly flew inside the space shuttle using the newly created opening and then went to the cockpit, where he saw the astronauts looking at him in surprise. "Quick! Get out of here fast! This thing's gonna blow!" he told them.

KABOOM!

The back part of the space shuttle exploded, and this caused the front part to fly off Superman's hands and spin through the sky very fast. "Oh no!" the Kryptonian gasped.

Inside the remaining part of the space shuttle, Hal and the astronauts found themselves tossed around violently, and they couldn't find the opportunity to stand properly.

Knowing that the safety of the astronauts was top priority, Hal tried his best to contain all three of them inside a green barrier, and he managed to do so when all three of them happened to "fly" close to each other.

Meanwhile, Superman flew after the space shuttle as fast as he could. The direction it was heading for was a place with several civilians, so he had to make sure it wouldn't crash there, or else lives might be lost.

When he started going after that part of the space shuttle, a part of it burst open, and Hal came out of it, bringing with him the three astronauts using the same barrier he contained them in.

"Good work!" Superman said to him as he sped by him. As the Man of Steel was getting closer and closer to the space shuttle, someone appeared next to him.

"I'll get that!" said the newcomer, a woman in a getup that reminded one of America's flag.

"Wonder Woman!" Superman said when he saw that person.

Wonder Woman went ahead of him, took out her Lasso of Truth, spun it over her head several times after forming a hoop out of it, and then threw it at the space shuttle. Thanks to the lasso's durability, it was able to catch the space shuttle without burning up. Wonder Woman was pulled forward by the space shuttle a few feet, but thanks to her strength, she managed to stop it from moving with ease. After that, she flew towards the ocean below, taking the space shuttle along with her.

"What are you doing?!" Superman loudly asked her in surprise.

The Amazon didn't respond to him and kept on flying downwards. When close to surface of the water, she swung down the lasso and dunked the space shuttle in the sea, dousing its flames completely.

SPLAAAAAAAAAAAASH!

A large amount of steam came up from the water as a sign of how hot the space shuttle was burning. When the steam died down a bit, Wonder Woman lifted the space shuttle back to the surface and told Superman as he flew over to her, "Figured that they may still want this, so I put out its flames."

"Smart thinking!" Superman commented. "I was planning to destroy it. Didn't think of the possibility that NASA may still want it…"

With the crisis averted, the three superheroes flew to the coast, where the civilians cheered for them, since they saw what happened from where they were. The three astronauts also thanked those three for saving them. "Thank you very much, Superman, Wonder Woman, and Green Lantern, for saving us!" the astronaut who remained fearless throughout the whole ordeal said to them. "We couldn't have lived through this without your help!"

"Thank you so much for saving us!" the astronaut who was originally sitting in front of the control wheel said. The remaining astronaut thanked them as well.

Having done their job, the three superheroes flew side to side through the sky, while the crowd continued to cheer for them down below.

They flew onto the top of a nearby skyscraper and looked at the things going on down below, such as the news reporters arriving at the scene and a large truck arriving to pick up the remaining part of the space shuttle.

"Thanks for dropping by to help, Hal!" Superman said to the Green Lantern corps member.

"I was returning from a space mission when I happened to see this, so I decided to lend a hand," Hal told him. "It's our job to save the day and also help each other, so you don't have to thank me."

"No, really! I'm not sure if I could've rescued those astronauts without someone helping!" Superman told him. "It's thanks to you that nobody is hurt!"

"So the most powerful superhero in the world knows his limits too, eh?" Hal said with a smile. "Glad to be of assistance!"

As they continued to look at the what was going on down there, Superman suddenly remembered something and so asked Hal and Wonder Woman, "Have you seen the news today? It has been decided by the authorities of Gotham City that the Joker is going to be executed in a week's time!"

"Yeah, saw it," Hal said with a slight nod. "About time they finally decided to do something like that! Just because he's insane doesn't mean he can get an insanity defense all the time! Look at the things he's done over the years! Guess they finally decided that enough is enough with that clown…"

"I have to agree," Wonder Woman said. "He's been a menace to not only Gotham City, but to us as well. I'm sure everyone can finally rejoice that he will soon no longer walk this world."

"The law has decided on this fairly, so I have no say in this," Superman said. "Even so, I do feel sorry for him… Everyone deserves the right to live, no matter how evil he or she is."

"A boy scout like always…" Hal commented upon hearing what he said. "He was given several chances to redeem himself, but he threw them all away. By the way, what does Batman thinks about this?"

"Haven't talked to him about this yet," Superman said to him. "I'm thinking of calling him later to ask him about this."

"Well, I'm sure he'll finally be able to sigh with relief that his crime fighting career just got a lot easier," Wonder Woman said with a smile.

* * *

The rest of the day went by normally, as normal as it was for this world.

This was a world where superheroes one could only dream of seeing comic books existed.

People with superpowers lived among normal people, interacting with them like it was everyday life. People with such powers would either use them to fight for justice or commit crimes.

One would think that a world like this was very chaotic and not safe to live in. That was partially true, because thanks to a group of very capable superheroes, the world was, for the most part, safe to live in.

The Justice League was an alliance of some of Earth's most powerful and finest superheroes. Together, they managed to keep the planet and occasionally other parts of the universe safe.

They were a group loved and praised by several people. Needless to say, they weren't popular among evildoers, who wished that they never existed. Various times had they tried to bring down the Justice League, and though some came close to succeeding, they ultimately failed in the end.

No matter what happened, the league would always prevail in the end.

The league had their headquarters located in outer space, floating within Earth's orbit. It was a giant space station known as the Watchtower.

Due to being located in space, they were able to use their teleportation technology to send people to almost every location on Earth with ease, not to mention bringing them from the planet and into itself.

It was the perfect place for detecting threats on Earth and instantly going there to resolve things. The only thing inconvenient was that it was impossible to tell whether it was daytime or nighttime in outer space without the help of a clock, so for the people working there, they could be up all night and never realize it.

Fortunately, the members of the league were kind enough to put up a large clock that showed all the different time zones of the United States of America, as almost all the members there were from that country.

It was about eleven at night when Martian Manhunter came to the navigation room and saw Cyborg reclined on a chair. "What are you doing?" the Martian asked him.

"Waiting for a TV show to start," said the African American cyborg while looking at the large computer at the front. "It's about a group of robots who work together to save the world from supervillains. You want to watch it with me?"

"Okay, since I don't have anything to do at the moment," the Martian said with a slight nod. "Must be something to watch TV using a screen like this, don't you think so?"

"My TV back home isn't as big as this, so yeah, it's definitely something!" Cyborg replied.

Suddenly, a siren went off, surprising them both. Martian Manhunter returned to Cyborg and, looking at the computer the latter was looking at, asked him, "This

siren… Is it…?"

"Yep," Cyborg replied without letting him finish his phrase. "Boom tubes… Lots of them… They're in Metropolis, Gotham City, Central City, Coast City, Star City, and more… Never seen so many of them appearing at once…"

Martian Manhunter became worried upon hearing this, and then he said, "Quick, we should let the league members living in those places know about this! This could be the beginning of a large-scaled invasion!"

* * *

Reimu slowly opened her eyes, but she remained lying on her front for a few seconds before deciding to get up. "What… What happened…?" she asked. She rubbed her eyes and then looked at her surroundings to see that it was nighttime, and Kaguya was seen lying on her front not too far away.

The shrine maiden stood up and then approached the Lunarian princess. She bent down next to her and shook her by the shoulder to wake her up, to which the princess replied, "Five more minutes, Eirin…"

"I'm not Eirin, and this surely isn't your bedroom!" Reimu said as she smacked the princess in the back of her head with the back of her index finger hard.

"Ow! What was that for?!" Kaguya angrily asked as she sat up with her hands at the back of her head. "You! The shrine maiden! Is this how you're supposed to treat a princess!? I demand an apology!"

"I treat everyone equally, so I don't care if you're a princess or a not," Reimu said to her. The princess pouted and formed her hands into fists when she heard that, but Reimu ignored her and then turned around. "What is this place? I don't remember any place in Gensokyo looking like this…"

She noticed that there were lights all over the place. She walked forward until she realized that she had come to the edge of a "cliff". She then looked at the sight before her eyes and became filled with awe.

Skyscrapers… Towering skyscrapers everywhere…

"Isn't… Isn't this the outside world…?" Reimu said in awe. "We're… We're in the outside world…?"

Kaguya walked up next to her and looked at the sight in awe as well. "Wow… I've seen pictures of the outside world before, but seeing them in person feels a lot more different! I can't believe in the outside world! I've been thinking of coming here for some time already!"

"Did that portal take us to the outside world?" Reimu wondered while looking around. "And where is everybody else? I saw a lot more people being sucked into that portal. Where are they?"

Kaguya looked around and said, "You're right… I was close to Mokou when we got pulled up the portal… I don't see her anywhere now, though…"

"Did we get separated when we got ejected here?" Reimu wondered. "Let's hope they're not far from us…"

"I'm sure we'll meet them sooner or later," Kaguya said to her. "Before that, why don't we take our time looking around the place? Coming to the outside world isn't something everyone in the outside world can do!"

"How can you want to have fun at a time like this…?" Reimu asked her. "We should think of what to do next." Then she looked the car lights moving at the bottom. "Never thought something like this would happen… Let's hope everything gets resolved fast and easily…"

* * *

With a punch to the thug's face, a man dressed like a bat managed to take down all the robbers of a nearby jewelry store. After tying them up together with a rope, he heard the sound of police cars approaching, so he quickly slipped into the night.

Making his way to the top of a building using a grappling hook, the renowned vigilante of Gotham City, Batman, looked down from where he was at the policemen taking care of the robbers and the stolen goods. Among the policemen was a reliable ally, Commissioner Jim Gordon, who noticed him up there and nodded with a smile as a way of thanking him for his job well done. The Dark Knight nodded with a stern expression, and then he turned and walked towards the other side of the building.

After using his grappling hook to get to the bottom, Batman approached his ride, the Batmobile, which was parked in an alleyway, and just as he was going to get inside it, its built-in communicator sounded. After getting seated inside the vehicle properly, Batman pressed a button to answer it. "Oracle, what is it?"

"Batman, you've received a message from the Batcomputer, but since nobody in the Batcave answered it, it was automatically transferred to me," a female voice told him from the other side. "It's from the Justice League."

"The League? What is it?" Batman asked.

"Boom tubes have appeared in various places. Metropolis, Central City, Coast City… Just to name a few…" the voice belonging to someone named Oracle replied. "There are some in Gotham City too."

"Boom tubes? Where in Gotham? How many are there?" asked the Dark Knight in a more serious tone.

"There are three in our vicinity. I'm not sure how many there are in the whole of Gotham, however…" Oracle replied.

"I'm not very far from Kings and Queens' Jewelry Store," Batman told her. "Where's the one nearest to my location?"

"The one nearest to your location is… Johnson Street," Oracle replied. "It's inside one of the alleys. Don't know if there's a specific name for that place…"

"Just give me the map," Batman told her. "All right, I'm moving out!" He started the Batmobile's engines and then drove out of the alley to head for the location Oracle told him.

* * *

TO BE CONTINUED

Well, here it is… The story I've been building up since Shizuha's story…

I had an idea for this kind of crossover for a while already. It started off as a Touhou/Marvel crossover, but as time went by, I gradually lost interest in wanting to make that story.

Eventually, my interest shifted over to DC Comics, thanks to its well-made animations.

Once, I stumbled upon a well-made Naruto/Justice League crossover called Connecting the Dots. It was after going through and finishing that story was I inspired to make a Touhou/DC crossover.

Basically, this story is my Touhou/Marvel story idea revived. Since this story is inspired by Connecting the Dots, I admit there will be similarities to that one. Still, there will be lots of differences, so those who read that story will still want to stick around. I'm sure the experience will be very different!

While Connecting the Dots used the DCAU version of the DC universe, I am using my own interpretation of it. In order to allow more freedom in the portrayals of the DC universe and also to make up for my lack of knowledge of the comics, my interpretation of this universe is an amalgam of various DC medias and a bit of my own original elements. You will find elements from cartoons, movies, video games, etc. Even though my knowledge of the comics is limited, I will still make use of what I know from it, even if it is not much.

Also, the founding members of the Justice League here all sport their default Injustice: Gods Among Us costumes.


	2. Invaders?

Not counting the author's note and the chapter title, I actually finished working on this chapter before the first one! This chapter is very fun to type, in my opinion, and I hope you will enjoy it!

**Chapter 2  
Invaders?**

* * *

It wasn't only Gotham City that had its vigilantes coming out to fight crime at night. Star City was also one of those places where its vigilantes were mainly active night.

One vigilante living there had just finished his job of pinning a jewelry store robber to a wall using two arrows that were fired at his jacket's sleeves. Ignoring the thug's plead for mercy, the hooded archer of Star City, Green Arrow, answered his communication device, which sounded shortly after he caught him. "It's me, Green Arrow. What is it, Cyborg?"

"Our time-space detector has detected several boom tubes, and there are some in Star City," Cyborg told him from the other side of the device. "You're probably out doing your job right now, so would you mind go investigate them?"

"Boom tubes? Are we expecting the folks from New Genesis or Apokolips?" Green Arrow asked.

"Don't know… All we know is that someone or something likely came out from those boom tubes," Cyborg told him. "We don't know if they're friendly or not… Since several of them have appeared at more or less the same time, it may be the beginning of an invasion… Anyway, I'll send you the location of the ones closest to where you are now, so use it to find them."

"And what do I do after I find those visitors, or invaders?" Green Arrow asked him.

"Subdue them if they are dangerous, and then contact me to transport them to the Watchtower," Cyborg told him.

"All right," Green Arrow said. "Just give me the locations, and I'll see if they are unwelcomed guests or not." After taking the communication device off his ear, he looked at its screen and waited for Cyborg to send over a map, which he did after a few seconds. "Okay, the closest one to me right now is… the Glades? A bit far, but whatever…" So he left the scene to look for the "invaders", leaving the thug at the mercy of the cops, who were closing in on his location, as evident of a police car's siren.

* * *

Within an alley of a dark and silent city, Meiling, Nazrin, Chen, and Kurumi were lying unconsciously on the ground.

Meiling was the first of the four to get up. "Ow… What happened…?" she asked while rubbing the back of her head and looking around the place. She saw walls on three sides and a passage on one. "What is this place…?"

She noticed the other girls starting to get back up. "Where are we?" Nazrin asked while looking around.

"I was wondering the same thing," Meiling said to her. "Anyway, are the three of you all right?"

"I'm all right…" Chen replied, and then she looked around. "What is this place?" Then she looked up at the sky. "And why is it nighttime already? Did we fall asleep?"

"Well, we just woke up from passing out, so that's probably a logical explanation," Nazrin said. "Not sure how long we passed out, though…"

"I believe it was afternoon when we defeated those invaders from another dimension," Kurumi told her, "so judging by the night sky, I'd say we passed out for several hours."

"Maybe…" Meiling said. "Where is everybody? I remember everyone else being around us when we were all sucked up into that… hole in the sky…"

"I was going to escape into Mistress Yukari's gap, but was too late…" Chen said.

"I remember being close to Elly and my mistress as well, but I also remember getting separated from them after we found ourselves being tossed to and fro inside that portal…" Kurumi said. "Guess everyone went separate ways after going in there and then got grouped together randomly… Why else are the four of us together, even though I don't remember any of us standing close to each other when that happened?"

"Guess you have a point… That portal separated us from each other when we all got sucked inside it…" Nazrin said. "I only hope that it didn't separate us far from each other…"

Meiling looked at the passage and said, "Let's go out there and see if we can find out where we are first."

"Not so fast!" said a man's voice in perfect Japanese. All four girls became cautious when they heard that voice. They looked around for the source of it, and then Kurumi pointed to the source, which came from the top.

Everyone looked at where she was pointing to and saw the silhouette of a person standing on a balcony, but because of the darkness, they weren't able to see his details. They could, however, tell that he had what appeared to be pointy ears at the top sides of his head.

The four girls got into defensive stances to get ready to take on whoever that person was. The man didn't hesitate to jump down from the balcony and land a few feet in front of them, right underneath a light attached to the wall at the side.

Considering herself to be strongest of the bunch, Meiling got in front of the other three girls and asked that man in a voice that was meant to threaten him, "Who are you?"

Batman, the person who showed up before them, answered in voice that didn't sound too friendly, "I'm Batman."

"Batman?" Chen curiously said.

"Sounds like English for 'bat man'," Kurumi said.

"You know English?" Nazrin asked with her head slightly turned to her.

"Yeah," the vampire replied with a nod.

While the four girls stared at him, Batman took his chance to get a perusal out of them.

All of four of them spoke Japanese, but only two of them, the one with cat ears and the one with mouse ears, had faces that look like they're from that country. The red-haired woman in Chinese clothing was obviously Chinese in origin. While she spoke Japanese fluently, her accent managed to give it away. The blond girl with purple wings resembling that of bats' appeared to have both Western and Eastern characteristics, and she even spoke Japanese perfectly earlier. A mix-blooded, perhaps?

Other than the Chinese woman, they were all wearing casual-clothes one would normally see worn by people every day, which raised the question of if they were really the ones who arrived here using a boom tube, as that kind of portal was mainly used by alien life forms.

At first glance, the two youngest girls appeared to be wearing fake animal ears and tails, but upon closer inspection, Batman realized that they lacked human ears. Were they simply covered by their hairs, or were those animal ears actually real, thus making it unnecessary for them to have human ears?

The girl with cat ears appeared to be ten years old or so. Other than the cat ears and the pair of cat tails that were swaying around in the air slowly as if they were real, she also had red claws at the end of her fingertips. It wasn't the first time Batman encountered people with cat motifs, but other than Wonder Woman's metahuman arch nemesis, Cheetah, he never saw one with claws that actually appeared to be part of their fingers. Catwoman wore gloves with claws at the end of each of their fingertips, while Catman occasionally wore gloves with claws attached to their wrists, but this girl appeared to have actual claws. He could've shrugged them off as claws placed over her nails, but he remembered seeing them popping out all of a sudden when she spotted him. Perhaps she was a cat metahuman after all?

The girl with mouse ears had gray hair, and even if it was dyed, it was considered a weird choice of color for someone her age. She carried a pair of dowsing rods with the first letters of the four cardinal directions at their ends. Judging by the way she was holding them and the stance she was in, she was obviously using them as weapons. Also, she was carrying a basket using her tail, and there was a mouse in there, also staring at him. The fact that she was able to hold something with her tail convinced him that it was a part of her body, as one shouldn't be able to do this with a mere accessory.

The blond girl with wings made him question whether or not they were real. He hadn't seen them move yet, but they looked very real.

The most normal-looking one was the Chinese woman, but her red hair was unnatural-looking, so she probably dyed it, unless having strange hair colors was something normal in where they came from. Another thing Batman concluded from her was that she appeared to have skills in Chinese kung-fu, as the stance she was currently making was all too familiar to someone who had mastered almost every known martial arts and fighting styles to mankind.

"What do you want from us?" Meiling asked him, snapping him out of his observation.

"It depends on who you are and what you're doing here," Batman replied. "I've give you fifteen seconds to answer me!"

"Are you threatening us?" asked Nazrin, not liking his attitude. "Normally, I would give in to threats without much of a hesitation, but since I'm not alone here, I feel safer, so I don't feel as threatened."

"You must be one of those invaders!" Chen said. "Those invaders came out of that portal, and since we got sucked inside it, we must be in their homeland!"

"Oh yeah… Why haven't I thought of that?" Kurumi asked no one in particular.

"Invader?" Batman curiously said.

"If what Chen said is true, then you are an enemy! I'll take you down right this instant!" Meiling angrily said, and then she charged at him. Batman quickly stepped to the side to avoid her dashing punch, and when she followed up with a roundhouse kick, he jumped over it and then backed out of the alley, as the space out there allowed for a better fighting advantage.

"If you won't answer my question, then don't blame me for dealing with you all the hard way!" Batman said with a raised temper.

Meiling closed in on him and continued to attack him with a series of punches and kicks. Batman managed to block and dodge her attacks, and at the same time, he managed to make the observation that she was without doubt an expert in Chinese kung-fu.

Deciding that he wanted to fight fire with fire, Batman back away from her and got into a kung-fu stance that made Meiling ask him, "You know Chinese kung-fu as well?"

"You'll see," Batman replied.

Both sides charged at each other again and traded punches and kicks. Neither side succeeded in landing serious blows against each other. Whenever a seemingly fatal blow was going to connect, they would either dodge or block it.

"You're good!" Meiling commented in the midst of throwing attacks at him.

"Same goes for you," Batman told her.

"But I bet you can't do this!" Meiling said as her fist suddenly became covered in a rainbow-colored aura. Not wanting to take the risk of letting himself come in contact with a fist like that, Batman quickly dodged it and then jumped back from her, landing next to a streetlight.

Meiling ran up to him and performed a roundhouse kick, and the moment her foot left the ground, it became covered with a rainbow-colored aura. Batman jumped back again to avoid the kick, which tore the streetlight off the sidewalk and sent it into the wall.

This came as a surprise for Batman, as he knew that no matter how skilled a normal human was, he or she shouldn't be able to kick down a streetlight that easily, so he concluded that the aura must've enhanced her attacks. This also raised the question of how she did that.

Running on all fours at a fast speed, Chen approached Batman from the side and then leaped at him, ready to slash him with her claws. The Dark Knight realized that she was approaching, so he quickly moved back. When Chen landed, she glared at him for about a second before pouncing at him while crying like an enraged cat. Batman quickly brought up his arms to use his gauntlets as protection against her rapid claw strikes.

In the midst of defending himself against the claw strikes, Batman quickly pulled off a roundhouse kick that successfully sent Chen flying into the building wall at the side. Immediately after that, Meiling ran at Batman and threw a punch at him, but he quickly brought up his arm from below to force her fist upwards, making it go over his head. At almost the same time, he attempted to punch her in the abdomen, but being an expert in close-ranged combat, Meiling knew what was coming and thus brought her other hand to that place fast to block his fist. Using both hands, Meiling swung the Dark Knight in a circle and then flung him across the street and into the wall.

Batman grunted in pain as he fell onto the pavement, but he quickly got back up again. Chen ran towards the Dark Knight and then pounced at him with one arm pulled back, and at the same time, Nazrin ran towards Batman from the side. When the latter swung one of her dowsing rods at Batman, he quickly caught it and then forcefully pulled it in Chen's direction, causing the mouse demon to be pulled into the air and hitting the nekomata. Both the girls tumbled onto the pavement.

"You're both children, so unless I'm sure you have skills, don't make me look like I'm bullying you!" Batman said to them. Suddenly, he was carried into the air by the arms. "What the?!"

Kurumi carried the Dark Knight higher than the buildings in the vicinity before coming to a stop, and then she said to him, "So… you're dressed like a bat… Is there a reason for this? Are they your favorite animals?"

Ignoring her questions, Batman tried to escape her grasp by struggling, and then Kurumi threw him onto the roof of the nearest building. Before he could get back up entirely, the vampire quickly flew at him and pinned him down by the back of his neck. "It's useless trying to fight against the strength of a vampire," she told him. "Speaking of which, I've been in a heck of a fight not very long ago, and now I feel thirsty, so…"

Acting quick, Batman reached for his utility belt and took out a small pellet that he quickly brought in front of Kurumi's face and then squeezed. The pellet exploded in his hand and released a burst of light that caused the vampire to cry with her hands brought over her face. Batman then got up, which caused her to be pushed back off the building. He ran over to the side and saw her hitting the pavement. At first, he feared that he accidentally killed her, but then he remembered that vampires were supposed to be very durable, so a fall like that shouldn't kill her. This was assuming that she really was a vampire…

However, he didn't really have much time to wonder whether or not Kurumi survived the fall, as what he saw next surprised him. Meiling, Chen, and Nazrin were all floating in the air in front of him. "Let's see you take on all three of us at once!" Nazrin said to him while crossing her arms in front of herself with the dowsing rods gripped tightly in her hands.

"Flower Overhead Slam!" Meiling shouted as she spun vertically once before bringing down her rainbow-powered leg onto Batman, who jumped back to avoid it and thus witnessed the damage done to the floor.

Chen flew at the Dark Knight at a fast speed and tried to slash him, but he moved back in time. Nazrin charged at him from the other side and swung one of her dowsing rods at him, only for him to duck underneath it.

Batman quickly performed a couple of back flips to keep his distance from them, and then he took out a pair of batarangs to throw at Chen and Nazrin, who were closing in on him. Chen managed to avoid the one thrown at her, but Nazrin got hit by the other one and fell on her back.

Chen dashed at Batman, who expected her to go for a direct attack, but instead, the nekomata dashed around him, leaving behind a bluish-white trail that formed the shape a five-pointed star. "Pentagram Flight!"

The nekomata moved away from Batman after that, and he realized that the pentagram was glowing brighter and brighter. Sensing danger, he quickly leaped back out of the pentagram before the area in it exploded.

KABOOOOOOOOOM!

As he stood back up, Batman realized that he underestimated the girl with cat features. Her speed was definitely not one that normal humans could achieve, and the way she swung her claws looked like someone who had skills in doing such a thing. Creating an exploding pentagram was definitely something out of the ordinary as well. Lastly, all three of them were able to fly using the help of seemingly nothing…

These people were definitely not ordinary…

When Chen leaped at him to attack with her claws again, Batman managed to grab her hand and then flung her to the side. Almost immediately after he did that, Meiling ran at him and attacked with a flying kick that successfully hit him in the side. Batman was sent flying off the building. Acting quickly, he spread out his cape to use it as a glider, and while he didn't succeed in gliding, he managed to slow down the fall. Combined with the fact that he designed his boots to absorb impacts from long falls, he landed without hurting himself.

Looking up after the landing, Batman saw Meiling falling towards him with a rainbow-powered fist pointing at him, so he quickly got out of the way and then witnessed the crater left behind on the pavement. While not a big one, its size was still considered incredible for one created by a punch.

Chen suddenly dropped down in front of him and slashed him across the back. Thanks to the cape and his protective suit, however, it barely hurt him. He quickly moved back to the middle of the street while facing the two, and he was suddenly struck in the back by something.

BANG!

Batman cried as he fell forward, and when he looked back, he didn't see anyone or anything that could've hurt him. He then saw a beam fired at the building wall, and it bounced off it and in his direction, so he quickly jumped out of the way. Looking up at the building he fell from, he saw Kurumi with her hand pointing at him, and then a beam was fired from her palm, so he quickly dodged it.

"You can't escape forever!" Kurumi angrily said as she continued to fire laser beams at him, but the Dark Knight kept on dodging them by running and jumping. Eventually, he took out his grappling hook to aim at the top of a nearby building. Just before he was hit by a beam, he quickly used the grappling hook to pull himself onto the top of that building.

"What's all that noise out there?!" shouted a fat, middle-aged man with a moustache as he approached his apartment room's window. "Can't one get a shut eye around here?!"

After landing on the rooftop of the building belonging to that man, Batman took out a batarang and threw it at Kurumi, who easily dodged it. "Ha! Missed!" she laughed, only to get hit in the back of the head when it flew back, like all boomerangs do. "Ow!"

On a building at the other side, Nazrin threw her pendulum at Batman, and it shot through the air like a bullet. He didn't only dodge it, but he also caught its string. Nazrin felt herself being pulled forward when the Dark Knight pulled it, and though she tried to pull back, his strength was greater than hers, so she found herself losing this game of tug-o-war. "Let go of my pendulum!" she shouted in frustration.

"As you wish!" Batman said before using the same batarang he hit Kurumi with to cut the string, and Nazrin fell on her back as a result.

Meiling and Chen flew onto the same building as Batman and then closed in on him together to attack. Batman tried his best to defend himself against their attacks and parry them whenever he had the chance, and as skilled as he was in fighting up close, he found himself having a hard time trying to keep up with two skilled fighters attacking him from two directions at the same time.

Knowing that he couldn't take them down easily in a direct confrontation, the Dark Knight hopped back and reached for his utility belt to get out a smoke capsule, hoping that it would help him in some way. Just when he was about to get it, Kurumi caught him by the arms and carried him into the air. "You're not getting away this time!" the vampire said to him. "Now I'm going to suck dry your…" Before she could finish speaking, something hit her in the side of the head, making her cry in pain and letting of Batman. "Yeow!"

Batman landed on his feet and then turned to see who it was that saved him, and on the rooftop of a building across the street, he saw two people. The first person looked young and was dressed in red and black, not to mention a green mask covering only the area around his eyes and a yellow cape. The second person was older and was also dressed in red and black, but instead of a green mask and a yellow cape, he had a black cape and a same-colored cowl.

"Robin! Red Robin!" Batman called out to them.

* * *

Reisen looked around in fear. She had every reason to do so, because she was in an unfamiliar place that didn't look friendly at all.

Trash was all over the place, graffiti was seen on various buildings walls, and some buildings were even torn down. She even saw people lying on the floors inside some of the buildings, and she couldn't tell if they were still breathing or not.

If it weren't for the fact that she was with familiar people, she would've been even more afraid. Luckily for her, she was ejected from the portal alongside three people: Shizuha, Parsee, and Sara. She knew who the goddess of red leaves was, though she never really had the chance to get to know her or have a conversation with her. Parsee came to the surface a few times, and Reisen saw her before, but they never interacted with each other. Sara, on the other hand, was completely unfamiliar to her. She didn't even know that Makai had a gatekeeper.

Despite not being familiar with them, it was better to be with someone who came from the same place as her than someone else. The four girls stuck close to each other as they walked through the dark and quiet street of the city called Bludhaven. Reisen had a bit of knowledge in English, so that was how she learned the name of this place when she saw a sign not too long ago.

"What a horrible place…" Shizuha commented with a displeased face while looking around the place. "The Human Village looks a lot cleaner and friendlier than this, even if it looks more primitive!"

"I thought the outside world was supposed to be livelier and more… pleasing to the eye…" Sara said. "This is nothing like what I heard and thought…"

"Look at all those buildings… I'm so jealous that we don't have buildings like these where we come from…" Parsee commented in slight anger while looking around the place.

"You really know how to find things to be jealous about, don't you…?" Reisen asked her.

"This place isn't safe," Shizuha said. "Since we were attacked by thugs shortly after we arrived here, we should find a place where we can be sure we won't be attacked again and turn in for the night there. I'm sure this place will be livelier and safer in the morning. I suggest that we get onto the rooftops. It should be safer there."

Suddenly, they heard the sound of glass being broken, and up ahead, they saw some people throwing things at a building and also beating on its door until it was broken. "Looks like burglars…" Reisen said. "We better not have anything to do with them…"

Instead of following Reisen's advice, however, Shizuha walked towards that building and said, "I won't let those lawbreakers get away with it!"

"Shizuha! I said not to have anything to do with them!" Reisen said while reaching out her hand to her.

"I'm with the goddess!" Sara said while cracking her fists and following Shizuha. "I'm not a fan of lawbreakers not getting what they deserve! Someone will have to show them the consequences of breaking the rules!"

By the time Shizuha got in front of the building, the burglars had all gone into the general store they were going to rob. She took a few seconds to look at them getting their hands on whatever they could and throwing them into large bags, and then she shouted at them, "Hey you!" This caused them all to turn to look at her. "Breaking into a store and robbing it is against the law! Stop whatever you're doing at once, or else I'll make you regret it!"

The burglars didn't understand what she was saying, but they knew what language she was speaking. "Sorry, lady! I don't speak Japanese! You'll have to speak English if you want us to understand you!" one of them said.

Sara eventually joined Shizuha, and shortly afterwards, Parsee dragged a scared and unwilling Reisen over. Since Reisen knew English, Shizuha told her to communicate with them. The lunar rabbit trembled in fear and stuttered as she said to the burglars in English, "It's… It's… not good… to steal… Please… stop… whatever you're doing… at once…"

Hearing this, the burglars laughed out loud.

"Hahaha! If you're trying to scare us, then you're doing a laughingly bad job at it!"

"What can girls like you do to us?"

"Yeah! You don't scare us at all!"

While this was happening, a man dressed in a black and blue bodysuit and a black mask that covered only the area around his eyes appeared on the rooftop of a building opposite the grocery store. He watched as the girls backed away from the general store when the burglars came out with weapons such as chains and sticks in their hands.

A burglar holding a stick approached Shizuha while lightly tapping it against his palm. "So… how are you going to punish me? Slap me silly in the face?" he asked her in a mocking manner.

Without saying anything, Shizuha performed a roundhouse kick and kicked him away to the side by the waist, a sight that surprised the other burglars and the man on top of the building. Shizuha then got into a martial arts stance while looking at the surprised burglars. "You're forcing me to do things the hard way," she said in a threatening tone.

* * *

TO BE CONTINUED


	3. Enemies or Not?

**SBS Time!  
Guest: **Also, just as a suggestion: there is a Batman side character named Katana who hails from Japan and would most likely have more knowledge on youkai and Japanese mythology.  
**Game2002: **I already have plans for her to be in the story, but thanks for the suggestion on her knowledge on demons and Japanese mythology!

Nice to see that this story has gotten a decent amount of reviews right off the bat and that people are enjoying it so far! I'll try my best to make you all enjoy the whole thing!

**Chapter 3  
Enemies or Not?**

* * *

It didn't take long for a battle to break out when Shizuha kicked the burglar who underestimated her. This meant war for his companions, so they raised their weapons and ran at the girls, one of them telling them that were so dead. With the exception of Reisen, none of them were daunted by the sight of the approaching burglars at all.

While the fight went on below, the man who showed up on top of the building wondered if he should go down there and lend a hand to those girls. He understood Japanese, so he could tell from what Shizuha said earlier that these girls were on the right side of the law. However, he wasn't expecting them to be able to put up a fight, and they were actually doing well against those burglars.

As he watched, he observed what those girls were capable of and tried his best to summarize what he saw.

The blond girl in red, the one who kicked the bandit, mainly used kicks as her method of attacking. Her style doesn't seem like taekwondo or kickboxing, but even so, she didn't appear to be swinging her legs around in an unskilled manner. Being able to send people flying great distances with the kicks was amazing too.

The pink-haired girl showed great skills in karate, and she occasionally performed throws that showed signs of also knowing judo. Like the blond girl, she was able to send people flying great distances with her attacks.

The other blond girl wasn't seen fighting up close at all. Rather, she appeared to be only attacking by firing projectiles out of her forehead. At least that was what it looked like from where he was… There was also one occasion where that girl created a clone of herself, and the clone also fought in the same way.

The girl with purple hair and rabbit ears, despite looking the most scared of the bunch, wasn't slack in fighting as well. The way she fought reminded him of special military trainings, what with disarming enemies of their weapons and restraining them from behind. The unusual things about her was that she could fire seemingly nonfatal laser beams from her eyes and shoot energy-based projectiles from her fingers. The only possible explanation for such powers was that she was either a metahuman or not human at all, though concealed weapons could also be an explanation.

By the time he was done making his observations, the girls had finished dealing with the burglars. They were either passed out on the pavement or had run away. The man then wondered if he should make himself known to the girls, but he would have to do it in a way that wouldn't make them think of him as an enemy.

Sara dusted her hands and said, "These people are pushovers! They're not properly trained in fighting at all! The ways they threw their punches and swung their weapons tell a lot, and I'm not even knowledgeable in fighting with weapons!"

Reisen looked at the passed out burglars and asked, "What do we do with them? We can't just leave them here, can't we?"

"We'll tie them up and leave them to the police," Shizuha suggested. As soon as she said that, she heard the sound of a vehicle arriving, so the girls turned to see a van and more burglars arriving at the scene.

"There they are!" one of them said while pointing at the girls.

"Looks like they haven't learned their lesson yet," said Shizuha, not daunted at all by their arrival.

"They have so many people with them, and we have so little… I'm jealous!" Parsee angrily said.

"Not like things are going to be much harder than before anyway!" Sara said as she got ready to fight again. "I can still fight, so bring it!"

More burglars got out of the van, and as they all began to approach the girls, someone called out to the former, "Don't you think it's unfair having so many people teaming up against girls?"

Everyone turned to look at the top of the building and saw the man up on his feet. The girls wondered who he was, while the burglars looked scared and surprised. "It's Nightwing!" one of them cried.

The man they called Nightwing jumped down from the building and bounced off an awning before landing onto the street. Taking out a pair of sticks that emitted electricity, he said to the girls in Japanese without fully turning his head, "Don't worry, girls! I'm on your side!"

"You're on our side?" Shizuha curiously said. "Who are you?"

"Someone who is standing up to the corruption in this city!" Nightwing replied while getting ready to fight the burglars, who were running at him.

* * *

"Okay, let me get this straight," Red Robin said as he dodged a laser beam from Kurumi before throwing a batarang at her, but she also dodged it, "these people are the ones who came here using the boom tube, and for some reason, they speak Japanese. They don't appear to be evil, because they accuse you of being one of the invaders who invaded their land, right?"

"Pretty much that," Batman said while blocking punches and kicks thrown at him by Meiling. "However, that doesn't necessary mean they're not evil. For all we know, they could still be on the wrong side of the law. Just because their land got invaded doesn't automatically make them the good guys. Even villains go against each other at times."

"Yeah, you do have a point," Red Robin said while continuing to dodge Kurumi's attacks. "Still, I think we should sit down and talk to them properly. What if they're not what you think?"

"We'll need to know what they're capable of first," Batman told him while still doing the same thing. "Knowing what they're capable of will prove useful if they really are on the wrong side of the law and we have to deal with them again."

"Yeah, that's just like you…" Red Robin said with a shrug before moving to the side using a cartwheel spin to avoid another beam.

Meanwhile, Robin and Nazrin were engaged in a fight. The former, being the more skilled fighter, had an easy time against the latter, who was growing more and more frustrated at not being able to get anywhere in the fight. Pretty much the only thing Robin was doing was blocking the mouse demon's dowsing rod strikes using his staff.

"Is this all you've got?" Robin asked her in Japanese. "Your skills are pathetic!"

"Don't insult me!" Nazrin angrily said while trying her best to hit him with her dowsing rods.

Bored of doing nothing new, Robin spun his staff in a way that disarmed Nazrin of one of her dowsing rods. While the mouse demon was shocked by this, he used the staff to jab her in the abdomen before whacking her across the face hard. After that, he planted one end of the staff against the surface of the rooftop and then lifted his body into the air to spin around it, kicking her and making her tumble onto the floor.

When Robin landed, Chen jumped at him with her claws raised over her head. When he tried to block it with his staff, it ended up getting cut into pieces by the nekomata. Robin quickly backed away from Chen and then threw a shuriken shaped like the letter 'R' at her, but she easily swatted it away with her claws before pouncing at him. Using what was left of the stick, Robin fought at close range against the nekomata.

At first, it seemed like both sides were equally skilled, but eventually, Robin proved himself to be the more superior close range fighter when he started to land more successful hits on Chen. He eventually struck her from below in the chin and made her take some steps back, and then he closed in on her to punch her across the face, followed by sending her tumbling onto the floor with a roundhouse kick.

Not willing to go down just yet, Chen got back up and growled angrily on all fours like a real cat. She never got the chance to get back at him, as Kurumi suddenly crashed down on top of her and pretty much knocked her out. Robin saw a string bound to Kurumi's legs, and his eyes followed it all the way to Red Robin's grappling gun. Red Robin smiled in a somewhat sheepish manner, hoping that Robin didn't mind him unintentionally taking out his opponent.

With Nazrin, Chen, and Kurumi out of the picture, only Meiling was left. The gatekeeper of the Scarlet Devil Mansion was a formidable opponent for Batman, a man who was considered one of the best closed-ranged fighters in the world. To be able to put up a lengthy fight against the Dark Knight was considered impressive, as there were only a few "normal" people in the world on the same level as him.

Batman blocked and dodged Meiling's attacks constantly while analyzing her fighting style to see if there were any weaknesses he could exploit. So far, he wasn't successful in doing so. He had to admit that she was without doubt an expert in Chinese kung-fu, and the rainbow-colored auras that occasionally appeared around her hands and feet made her even more dangerous, as they, according to his observation, enhanced her strength. He managed to avoid all the rainbow-powered attacks so far, and he sure wasn't going to get hit by them on purpose to see if it had any other effects.

After binding up Nazrin, Chen, and Kurumi, Robin and Red Robin watched from the side Batman and Meiling's fight, and they wondered if they should lend him a hand. The latter suggested that they do nothing until it seemed like Batman was on the losing side, which at the moment didn't appear to be the case.

Thinking that this fight was going nowhere if he kept on fighting like this, Batman decided that it was time try to something else. The Dark Knight quickly took out a pink pellet from his utility belt and threw it at Meiling. Because the range between them was very small, Meiling wasn't able to block the pellet in time, so it hit her in the face and exploded into a burst of smoke that blinded her, not to mention making her eyes itch.

Having rendered her incapable of fighting back using tear gas, Batman took out a stun gun and pressed it against her abdomen to zap her with electricity that was strong enough to render a person unconscious. After that, he punched her across the face twice to make her back out of the smoke, but the effects of it were still making her crying uncontrollably.

"How dare you fight dirty?!" Meiling angrily said while wiping the tears off her eyes.

"I'll do whatever it takes to win a fight!" Batman replied as he pointed a small tube-like device at her. The device fired a tiny dart that hit her close to the side of the neck. Meiling pulled out the dart while still wiping off her tears using her other hand, and shortly after doing that, she felt herself feeling drowsy and unable to stand. Eventually, the effect of the sedative Batman used against her caused her to fall asleep on her back.

Seeing that the Dark Knight had won, Robin and Red Robin walked up to Batman, and the latter said to him, "You could've done that right from the start."

"I wanted to know what she's capable of first," Batman told him.

"Oh, right… Forgot about the way you act…" Red Robin said.

"What are the two of you doing here?" Batman then asked them.

"Oracle told us about the appearance of boom tubes and that there were three in the vicinity," Robin replied. "We were told that you were going for one of them, so we decided to head to the second one, while Katana went for the third one. We ran into you on the way, so we decided to help out, seeing how you were in trouble."

"You should've gone ahead for that one!" Batman suddenly said to him with a raised temper. "Foregoing what you are supposed to do like this can lead to grave consequences! We don't know what sort of beings came out of those boom tubes, so it's important that you go and find out the truth about it at all cost!"

"Oh, c'mon! If these girls are any indication, then whatever came out of the boom tube we were supposed to go after couldn't have been that bad!" Red Robin told him. "Not everyone who uses boom tubes is evil. The folks from New Genesis are nice fellows, aren't they?"

"It's important to be sure of everything and not jump to conclusions," Batman told him. "These girls may not necessary be an example of everything else that came out of those boom tubes, so you should've gone there to make sure that whoever came out of it wasn't dangerous."

"Fine, fine… Thanks for the compliment of saving your hide…" Red Robin grumbled in a sarcastic manner.

* * *

"Is this… the outside world?" Keine looked around in confusion.

The were-hakutaku had landed with Tenshi in what appeared to be a basketball court, as evident of the basketball hoops on both ends of the place. The place was surrounded by grated fences, so they couldn't find a way to leave, though it wasn't like this was a problem to them, since they could fly.

"This place reeks…" Tenshi said while sniffing the air. "Guess this is where people of the lowest class hang out… I can't believe I'm in a place like this… I'm fine being in lower class places if it's not the lowest of the lowest…"

"Enough of your low class and high class talk, would you?!" Keine said to her in an annoyed tone. "You make yourself sound like a racist who discriminates people not as rich as you!"

"People are divided into low and high classes, so I'm simply speaking the truth," Tenshi told her with her back turned to her, as she was looking at another part of the place. "I thought you're supposed to be very smart, so you should know that already."

Keine didn't like what she heard. "I can never get used to your spoiled attitude! Why is it that of all the people I see getting sucked into the portal, I have to reemerge with you?! Where is everybody else?!"

"That's what I'm thinking too," said Tenshi, still not facing her. "Why do I have to reemerge from the portal with a person who likes to nag like you? Even Iku doesn't nag as much as you!"

Keine growled in anger and really felt like strangling her or punching her in the face, but the thought of that was interrupted by the sound of chains being shaken. They both turned and saw some people opening the gate that served as the entrance and exit of the basketball court. Whoever those people were, they didn't look friendly, as the way they were dressed reminded one of ruffians, not to mention the fact that some of them were wielding sticks and things that could be used as melee weapons.

"Hey, what are you doing here?" a man with a barely visible jawline beard wearing a black leather jacket, a pair of blue jeans, and a dark red beanie asked them. "This is our turf, so you're not supposed to be in here without our permission! How did you get in here in the first place anyway?"

A question mark appeared over Tenshi's head when she heard this, so she asked the man, "What on earth are you talking about? Speak something I can understand, will ya?"

"This is English!" Keine told the celestial.

"English? Oh, that language," Tenshi said. "So he's speaking English?"

"You both from Japan or what?" the man asked them. "I'm sorry for not knowing any Japanese, but I'm sure you know what I mean by this." He pointed to the exit with his thumb, beckoning for them to leave the place.

Tenshi didn't get the message, however. She looked at that man's companions and said, "What about them? I don't get what you're saying…"

"He wants us to leave this place at once…" Keine told her. "I know a bit of English, and we're not allowed to be in this place."

"Oh, is that so?" Tenshi asked. "Well, since I don't like this place anyway, I have no reason to stay any longer, so I'm out of here."

Keine and Tenshi went past the man and headed for the exit, and the former apologized to him in English. However, some of the men got in front of them to block their way forward, so Tenshi said to them, "Hey! I thought you wanted us to leave! Get out of my way!"

"You think you can get in here and then leave so easily?" the man with the beanie said to them. "Things don't go your way so easily around here! I may not be able to speak Japanese, but I'm sure you know what I mean when I do this!" He stretched out his hand and showed them both his palm.

Realizing what he meant, Keine told Tenshi that he wanted money if they want to leave this place. Since she didn't want to get into trouble, Keine reached into her pocket to see if she had anything to offer him. She took out her wallet and gave him the money inside, but when the man saw the money, he loudly said, "This is Japanese currency! What use are they here in America?!"

* * *

Having finally arrived at the Glades, Green Arrow started looking for the boom tube that was indicated on his map to have appeared here.

The Glades was a slum neighboring Star City, and it was one place where most people avoided coming to, as it was filled with crime.

Only the poorest people of Star City lived there. It was also a place where various lawbreakers hung out, as the police rarely ever came to this place.

However, thanks to Green Arrow, things were more peaceful than before. There were good people living there after all, so someone had to step up to fight for them.

Even so, it was a place where one would prefer not to live or be in.

Following the map shown on his communication device, which he obtained from the Justice League, he traveled across the slum by parkouring his way across the top of buildings. Using this method, he managed to make his way to where the boom tube was, or used to be, in a short amount of time, just in time to see the ruffians closing in on Tenshi and Keine.

At first, he passed it off as a typical case of bad guys wanting to harm women, but then he realized two things: those women had abnormal hair colors and that this basketball court was where the map told him the boom tube was.

He didn't see any boom tubes in the court, and those girls with weird hair colors made him wonder if they were the ones who came out of it. His past experiences with boom tube encounters always involved aliens coming out of them, and seeing how Kryptonians were proof that aliens could look just like humans, it was likely that these two women could've arrived at this place using the boom tube that used to be here.

Whatever the case was, he had to help them before they get harmed, though it was also possible that those ruffians were going to get harmed by whatever weapons or alien powers they had instead. Just because those people were lawbreakers didn't mean they had to suffer at the hands of aliens.

Keine was scared at the men closing in on them, but Tenshi didn't look daunted whatsoever. Looking at those people with a bored expression, Tenshi said, "So… I take that you people are asking for a beating, right? Not that it matters, since I enjoy dishing out beatings to other people anyway, though I have the feeling that you won't keep me entertained. People like you aren't the kind to fight well after all."

Ignoring what she said, since he couldn't understand what she was saying, the man with the beanie said to them, "You should've watched where you're going! Since you don't have anything worthy to offer, you'll have to suffer the consequences before you can leave this place! Don't expect us to go easy on you just because you're women! We're not that kind of people, if you know what I mean!"

"Look, if you want a fight, just bring it already, okay?" Tenshi impatiently said. "I have no idea what you're saying, so you might as well forget about the words and get to the action right away! There's more fun that way!"

Suddenly, an arrow shot down from the air and struck that man from behind in the left shoulder. He cried in pain and fell forward, and the ruffians were shocked, as the sight of arrows in this place was all too familiar to them. The ruffians turned to the top of the building and expected to see someone familiar, only to find themselves looking at a woman with a long, braided hair wielding a bow.

Not having noticed that woman standing on the building across him the whole time, Green Arrow was surprised when he saw that man getting shot by an arrow. He was expecting to his former sidekick Arsenal when he looked at the rooftop of the other building, only to find a never-seen-before woman standing there.

Readying another arrow, the woman shouted in Japanese at Tenshi and Keine, "Get out of there!"

Keine realized who she was, and since she knew very well what she was capable of, she told Tenshi to quickly fly out of the way. They both did so, much to the surprise of the ruffians and Green Arrow. The arrowhead of the female archer glowed with white light, and then she fired it at where those two used to be standing on, creating an explosion that blasted the ruffians away.

KABOOOOOOOOOOOOM!

Just like that, all the ruffians were knocked out. Tenshi and Keine landed from floating in the air, and then the female archer flew over to them. "Looks like I arrived in time!" she said.

"Eirin!" Keine said to her in surprise. "Nice to see you! What are you doing here?"

"The portal dropped me on top of a building," the Lunarian doctor replied. "It isn't far from here, so I was able to find you both by chance quickly."

"Are there anyone else with you?" Keine asked her.

Eirin shook her head slightly. "Nope, I'm all alone when I found myself here. I take that the two of you are by yourselves, right?"

"What does it look like to you?" Tenshi asked her.

"I'll take that as a yes," said Eirin, looking at Tenshi.

Green Arrow continued to observe them from where he was. It would appear that those three knew each other, and their language was without doubt Japanese. Unfortunately for him, he didn't know how to speak that language, but he knew Chinese, though it definitely wouldn't help here. He wondered what he should do now. He was here for the purpose of finding out what came out of the boom tube, and if what he believed was right, those two women he first saw must've came out of it, and the third woman must've came out of another one, since the map showed him more than one.

Should he make himself known to these women? Or should he observe them in silence and see what their motives were first?

"By the way, someone else was up there when I shot that man, though I'm not sure what his motives are," Eirin said to Tenshi and Keine.

"What?" Keine curiously said.

Eirin turned to look at Green Arrow, who quickly ducked down to avoid being seen, and said in perfect English, "I already know you're there. Depending on what your motives are, we may or may not be your enemy!"

"They can speak English?!" Green Arrow said in surprise upon hearing his native language being spoken.

* * *

Washington, D.C., the capital of America…

Even such an important city was not safe from crime. In fact, one was currently happening outside a bank, and the policemen were doing a rather poor job at subduing the culprit behind the robbery.

Giving the police a hard time was a long-haired brunette dressed in a black tank top and a pair of jorts of the same color. What was most unique about her was that instead of having normal skin like everyone else, she had yellow fur and black spots, not to mention a tail. This gave her the appearance of a humanoid cheetah.

As the policemen tried their best to shoot down the woman, Cheetah, who was jumping and running around very fast and taking out the other policemen one by one using her claws, all the while carrying a large bag of money against her back, the commissioner shouted to his subordinates, "Hold her down until Wonder Woman arrives! We mustn't let her get away from here!"

After taking out the ones closest to her, Cheetah ran towards one of the police cars surrounding her in a semi-circle formation and performed an amazing leap to the top of it, crushing the siren underneath her feet when she landed. The commissioner shouted for his subordinates to stop her from getting away, so they quickly fired at her, but she jumped forward before the bullets got to her.

While she was still in the air, someone jumped at her and kicked her in the face with two legs, sending her back into the formation of police cars. When the police saw this, they cheered and said that Wonder Woman had finally arrived, and Cheetah sat up and growled in anger while rubbing her nose, waiting for her archenemy to make herself seen by her.

However, everyone was surprised when a young, blond girl wearing a brown hat with a pair of eyes on top of it hopped onto the top of the police car Cheetah was kicked over. Crouching in a position that reminded one of a frog, the girl said in English that had a heavy Japanese accent, "Think you can steal money and then escape so easily? I won't let you do such a thing!"

"Who are you?!" Cheetah asked her.

"You wouldn't know who I am, so there's no point in telling you," the girl, Suwako, replied.

"True that… There is indeed no point in knowing the name of someone who is going to get killed by me soon!" Cheetah said.

"Oh, is that what you think?" Suwako asked. "You're confident in yourself, aren't you?"

"More like you were out of your mind to pick a fight with me in the first place!" Cheetah loudly said before jumping at her with her claws pulled back.

The policemen shouted for Suwako to be careful, but instead of getting away, the goddess took a deep breath and then released a large amount of water from her mouth that washed Cheetah away.

Cheetah crashed into a police car at the back, and after Suwako closed her mouth to end the attack, she leaped all the way to where she was in an attempt to stomp her, but Cheetah quickly leaped forward to avoid it. Suwako planted her feet against the front part of the police car and then bounced back high into the air while spinning. When she was above Cheetah, she quickly produced a pair of iron rings in her hands and then threw them straight down at her, but the villainess avoided them by jumping back.

Suwako landed, pulled the rings out of the pavement, and then quickly turned around to use them to block Cheetah's claw swipe. The villainess continued to swing her claws at her, but Suwako managed to block them all with her iron rings.

In the midst of blocking the claw swipes, Suwako jumped back and threw one of the rings at Cheetah while in midair, but she managed to deflect it with her claws. Suwako threw the second one at her immediately after landing, but the same thing happened.

Cheetah pounced at her after that, and Suwako responded by slamming her hands onto the pavement to make a large arm made of rock come out and slam into her, making her fly over a police car. Needless to say, the policemen were surprised by what they saw. It wasn't the first time they saw superpowers being used, but they didn't expect this young girl who came out of nowhere to be able to do stuff like spitting out a large amount of water and making an arm made of rock came out of the pavement. Even the range and height of her jumps amazed them.

Cheetah screamed as she shot back through the air, but then she came to a sudden stop in midair. When she looked at who caught her by the shoulders, she was shocked to see that it was Wonder Woman. "Looks like someone beat me to you in teaching you a lesson!" the Amazonian princess said to her.

* * *

TO BE CONTINUED


	4. Merciless

**Not-So-Pointless Random Rambling: **I enjoy Batman Begins and The Dark Knight Rises more than The Dark Knight.

**Chapter 4  
Merciless**

* * *

Because of the appearance of the boom tubes, Cyborg had to get busy contacting various Justice League members and tell them about this, and as a result, he couldn't watch the TV show he wanted to see, even though it was currently airing. He was disappointed that something like this had to happen at a time like this, but it wasn't like all was lost. He could simply grab the show off the Internet some other time, and he hoped that this supposed invasion wouldn't take away too much of his free time.

"I think that should be all the league members I should contact," he said while looking at the computer screen. "However, since it's considered late night, some of them are asleep and didn't seem to get my message."

"Here's hoping that whatever came out of those boom tubes aren't threats and that not doing something about them won't cause any harm…" Martian Manhunter said. "We'll have to hear from those who managed to get your message and then went to investigate them first."

"Let's hope they bring us not-so-bad news…" Cyborg said. "The last thing we want is another invasion from Apokolips, assuming they are the ones behind those boom tubes…"

* * *

With the arrival of Wonder Woman, Cheetah was subdued and arrested by the police, who all gave their thanks to the beloved heroine of Washington, D.C. and the unknown girl.

After the police left, Wonder Woman asked Suwako who she was. Suwako wasn't sure if she wanted to tell her that she was a goddess, since people of the outside world didn't believe in deities and supernatural stuff as much as the ones in Gensokyo. However, seeing that this woman was flying earlier, and unless she was using technology to do that, it might be possible that she wouldn't find her story too farfetched. Still, Suwako didn't want to make herself sound crazy, so she tried to come up with something else.

"I'm just a girl who is crazy about fighting crime and enforcing justice…" Suwako nervously said. "You… You are my role model, and I've always wanted to meet you in person up close… It's a pleasure to meet you, Wonder Woman...!"

Her nervousness made Wonder Woman question whether or not she was telling the truth, though it was possible that she was simply nervous about being close to her role model. Deciding that she wanted to get to the bottom of this, she took out the Lasso of Truth and told her, "Do you want me to use this on you?"

"The lasso? What for?" Suwako asked.

"Those bound by it will be forced to speak the truth," Wonder Woman told her. "Sorry if I sound harsh, but since I've never seen you before, I cannot be sure if you are telling the truth. Your nervousness makes me suspicious as well."

Suwako swallowed nervously, but then she sighed while thinking, "If what she said is true, then she probably wouldn't think I'm crazy for saying that I'm a goddess, I hope…"

Woman Woman bound her wrist with the lasso, which glowed with golden light, and then asked her who she was. Suwako suddenly found herself automatically answering her question. "I am Suwako Moriya, the goddess of mountains."

"Goddess?" Wonder Woman curiously said while raising an eyebrow. It was hard to believe, but since it was impossible for those bound by the Lasso of Truth to say lies, she had to be telling the truth.

The Amazonian princess then asked where she came from. After learning about Gensokyo, she asked the goddess how she ended up here, and after listening to her story, Wonder Woman opened her mouth in surprise. When Suwako was done speaking, Wonder Woman unbound the Lasso of Truth and said to her, "You have quite a story there!"

"You believe everything I said?" Suwako asked.

"If the Lasso of Truth made you say all those, then I have to believe you, since it's impossible to lie if you are in contact with it," Wonder Woman told her. "Furthermore, this world has its own share of unbelievable and supernatural stuff, so who you are and where you come from really isn't anything new."

"Such things tend to either go unnoticed or hide themselves from outsiders," Suwako said. "After all, most people out here don't believe in supernatural stuff. Looks like you're one of the few who believe in them…"

"Trust me, there are more people out here who believe in supernatural and other unbelievable things than you think," Wonder Woman told her.

"Maybe things have changed since I left the outside world… Who knows?" Suwako said. "I've never even heard of you before I moved to Gensokyo. By the way, someone from where I come from appeared here with me. I'll go and call her." Then Suwako walked in the direction of an alleyway, and Wonder Woman followed her.

When they got to the entrance, Suwako called out, "You can come out, Kagerou! There's nothing to be afraid of!"

* * *

"Okay, yes," Cyborg said while looking at the computer screen. "I'll beam you up now. Just a moment…" Then he started pressing the buttons on the control panel.

"Doctor Fate managed to catch some of those invaders?" Martian Manhunter, who was standing next to him, asked him.

"Yeah," Cyborg replied with a slight nod as he pressed one last button.

Once it was pressed, a slightly raised platform behind them was suddenly covered in a beam of light, and when the light disappeared, a caped man dressed in blue and wearing a golden helmet that covered every single part of his head but the eyes was seen standing on there, and next to him were Lyrica, Merlin, and Kogasa, bound together by an energy ring.

"These troublemakers were scaring people in a bar," that man, Dr. Fate, told Martian Manhunter and Cyborg as he approached them, and the ring binding the three girls together followed him. "They are the invaders who arrived here using one of the boom tubes."

"We're sorry…" Kogasa cried in her native language while sniffing. "We promise not to cause any more trouble…"

The Prismriver Sisters, however, were angry about their predicament. "Let us go at once, tin can head!" Lyrica angrily shouted at Dr. Fate. "You won't get away with this once I'm out of here!"

Cyborg and Martian Manhunter looked at the girls with slightly surprised expressions, and they were also confused. "So… these are the aliens who are supposed to be invading our planet?" Cyborg asked. "Are you sure you got that right?"

"They were found not too far from where one of the boom tubes appeared," Dr. Fate replied. "I also sense something different about them. Using my powers, I was able to tell that they are not from this world. Furthermore, they are not even human, despite their appearances."

"Not human?! But they look just like ordinary little girls!" Cyborg said in surprise. "Two of them do have strange hair colors, though…"

Just then, a sound came from the computer, so everyone turned to it, and Cyborg said someone had called him to beam them up. He went to the computer and looked at the screen to see who it was, and then he said, "Nightwing, Wonder Woman, and Green Arrow called. They want to be beamed up."

"I assume they're bringing with them the ones who came out of the boom tube?" Martian Manhunter asked him.

"That's my guess," Cyborg said as he pressed some buttons on the control panel. "We'll see…"

When he was done, the teleportation pad behind them was covered in a beam of light, and when the light disappeared, Nightwing was seen standing there with Shizuha, Reisen, Parsee, and Sara. Lyrica, Merlin, and Kogasa were both surprised and glad to see familiar people, and the girls that arrived with Nightwing had the same reactions.

Shortly after that, Wonder Woman, Suwako, and Kagerou appeared on the teleportation pad, and then Green Arrow, Keine, Tenshi, and Eirin showed up next.

* * *

Needless to say, the girls from Gensokyo were all surprised and glad to see each other.

All was quiet and well in a place that was made almost entirely out of metal. Quite a few security cameras could be seen attached to various parts of the ceiling, and guards were occasionally seen patrolling the place. It was as if it was a very important place that had to be secured properly at all times.

It didn't seem like anything special was going to happen in a place like this, until a portal appeared, and Iku came flying out of it.

The oarfish demon hit the metallic floor with a thud, and she groaned in pain as she slowly pushed herself back up. Before she could stand back up, another portal appeared next to her, and Yuugi flew out of it and landed on top of her. "Ow!"

"Whoa… Finally came to a stop…" the oni said while looking around. "What was that all about…?"

"Would you mind getting off me…?" Iku asked her.

"Oh, sorry…" Yuugi said before standing up.

Two more portals appeared close to them, and Flandre and Utsuho fell out from each of them. Utsuho groaned in pain while standing back up, while Flandre hopped back on her feet and exclaimed, "That was fun! I want to do that again!" Then she turned and saw Iku. "Hey! It's you! Did you come here using the same method as me?"

"Yeah," Iku said with a slight nod. "I don't think what happened to us was supposed to be fun, though…"

"Where is this place?" Utsuho asked while looking around with a somewhat scared expression. "How did I end up here…?"

Yuugi looked around as well and said, "Never saw this place in my life before… This place looks… bland… Whoever designed this place lacks taste…"

"Wait a minute… Is this the science lab?" Utsuho suddenly asked. "It looks quite a bit like the place I work at!"

As soon as she said this, a loud siren went off, and it was accompanied by a computerized voice that said, "INTRUDER ALERT! INTRUDER ALERT!"

This surprised the four girls, especially Flandre. "It's English, my native language!" she pointed out.

"What was that voice saying just now?" Yuugi asked while looking around for the source of the voice.

"It said 'intruder alert'," Flandre replied.

"Intruders? Where?" Utsuho asked while looking around.

A door on one side of the room opened, and some guards ran in and pointed their guns at them. "The four of you!" one of them loudly said to them. "Put your hands up and don't move!"

The four girls were surprised by the sight of this, and Iku and Utsuho took a few steps back in fear, but Yuugi and Flandre didn't show signs of fear at all. "What's with those people? What did he said just now?" the former asked.

"He told us to put our hands up and don't move," Flandre replied.

"Really? From the sound of it, they're either trying to rob us or think we're trying something funny here," Yuugi said. "Since we're not doing the latter, it should be the former."

"On the second thought, I think we're in a place we're not supposed to be in…" Iku said.

Yuugi looked back slightly and asked, "What makes you think that?"

"The girl next to you said that the voice we heard earlier talked about intruders, and I think we are those intruders," the oarfish demon explained.

"But we didn't come in here on purpose!" Utsuho claimed. "I don't even know how I got here in the first place!"

"Yeah, the satori's pet raven has a point," Yuugi said. "We have no idea how we ended up here, and it's not like we wanted to come here in the first place, so those people have no right to blame us!"

"I told you to put your hands into the air! Do you not understand English?" the same guard asked them. "You are in an off-limits place, and here, we have the permission to use lethal force on intruders if they do not cooperate!"

"They're speaking Japanese," another guard told him. "I think they really don't know English…"

"Well, they'll have to learn about it now!" that guard said.

"He said we came into a place we shouldn't be in, and they have the permission to harm us if we don't listen to them," Flandre told Yuugi.

"Oh, so they want to play it rough?" Yuugi said while cracking her fists. "If this is how they treat innocent people, then I can't imagine how they treat people who intentionally get on their bad side. Not a very good way to welcome people or treat the lost and confused, don't you think? In case you haven't got it yet, I'm not a fan of unfriendly welcome parties."

"Um… I think we better cooperate… We don't know what this place is, so we should listen to them and try to find out more of this place…" Iku told Yuugi. She was worried that the oni would do something reckless. Getting into fights was what they were good at after all.

As much as Yuugi didn't like the attitude of the guard who spoke and felt like punching him in the face, she knew she shouldn't be so quick to get into action and do something reckless. Deciding to comply with what that guard said for the meantime, she grumbled under her breath while raising her arms into the air. Flandre did the same when she saw this, and Iku and Utsuho did the same.

Seeing that these intruders had raised their arms, that guard told the others to surround them, lock them away, and then tell the chairman about this. The girls were then told to hand over anything that could be related to weapons over to them. Flandre's Laevatein and Utsuho's Third Leg obviously struck them as being weapons. While the latter complied and began to remove her arm cannon, the former denied listening to the guards. "No! This is mine! I won't give it to you people!" she said in English.

"Hand it over, little girl!" one of the guards said to her. When Flandre refused again, he grabbed the Laevatein and tried to pull it away from her, but she pulled back hard.

"I won't give it to you! You're a big meanie!" she angrily said. With a strong yank, she managed to remove the Laevatein from that guard's hands, and out of rage, she swung it at him and slashed him in the chest. The guard fell back while crying in pain, and the other guards immediately pointed their gun at Flandre. Angered by what happened just now and also in an act of self-defense, Flandre swung her weapon to release fire that spread forward and got onto the guards, burning them.

When the other guards saw this, they immediately deemed Flandre as being dangerous and so fired at her without hesitation. She managed to deflect the bullets with her weapon before flying at them to strike them down with it.

"Flandre! Don't!" Iku shouted with her arm stretched out to her. "You'll make things worse!"

As if this wasn't enough, Yuugi thought it was a great idea to join in on the fun, seeing how Flandre was now being reckless. With an excited grin on her face, she punched away the guards standing next to her. Utsuho had just removed her Third Leg and was going to hand it to the guard in front of her, but when she saw what happened, she quickly put her arm cannon back on and shot him.

Iku was shocked by this turn of event. She was hoping that everyone would cooperate, because she didn't want to get into trouble in an unfamiliar place, but now that all the guards were either knocked out or killed, there was definitely no way they were going to get out of this peacefully. "What have you done?! You shouldn't have acted recklessly!" she angrily said to them. "This is going to get us into big trouble sooner or later!"

"That's what they get for treating us harshly and even trying to take her… stick," Yuugi said while pointing at Flandre with her thumb.

"Yeah! I hate people who try to take my things by force!" Flandre said with the Laevatein raised into the air.

Suddenly, the door opened again, and more guards came in. "Halt, all of you!" one of them shouted while pointing his gun at them.

* * *

A brunette dressed in a business suit quickly walked into a room that appeared to be made for someone very important. The size and the cleanliness of this place were proofs of it, as well as the very high quality-looking pieces of furniture.

She walked over to a desk and approached the rotating chair that currently had its back facing her, and whoever was sitting on it was currently on the phone. The person sitting on the chair turned around slightly to see her, and when he was done with his phone call, he asked her, "What is it, Mercy? Can't you see that I'm busy? I have so much work to do that I have to work overtime and even past midnight! Get on with it fast!"

"I'm very sorry to interrupt you," she said to him. "Intruders have appeared in the underground lab, and they are giving your guards a hard time."

"What?!" the man said in surprise just before he spun around on his chair.

* * *

It didn't matter how many guards were at the scene; all of them combined couldn't do anything about the intruders before their eyes.

Flandre used her speed to dodge the bullets and struck down the guards one by one, and when she got shot, it looked like her wounds would heal by themselves at a relatively fast speed.

Yuugi, on the other hand, didn't bother to avoid the bullets, because they were actually bouncing off her. Despite this, she complained about the pain whenever a bullet hit her. Using her monstrous strength, she managed to overpower guards who thought they could pin her down using brute force.

Utsuho was firing energy shots all over the place, blasting the guards and setting certain parts of the place on fire. She also moved around at a fast speed, so she was able to avoid the bullets fired at her.

Iku was the only one trying to avoid having anything to do with this, but because of the other three causing chaos, the guards had deemed all of them too dangerous to be taken alive, so she had to defend herself using electricity when the guards came after her. "Why does it have to be like this!" she angrily said while defending herself.

"It's more fun this way!" Yuugi said while throwing a guard at a group of guards to knock them all down.

"How can you be enjoying this?!" Iku angrily and loudly said to her.

* * *

The chairman of the place called an underground lab by the woman named Mercy was observing the chaos happening there using a flat panel screen that came out from the front part his desk's surface. He was surprised and also very interested at what those four girls were capable of.

The blond girl was either very strong or had super strength as her metahuman power, though the fact that bullets bounced off her implied the latter. The horn intrigued him as well, as it seemed to be growing out of her head instead of being an accessory.

The black-haired girl with wings could be passed off as a Thanagarian, but he didn't remember that alien species having black wings, so she was likely a metahuman with bird-like wings. The fact that she used an arm cannon to fight likely meant she didn't have any powers that could be used for offense.

The purple-haired girl was without doubt a metahuman, what with her releasing electricity from her body. The way her ribbon behaved, such as it catching people with ease, was considered abnormal as well.

The little girl was definitely an interesting one. He had never seen a person so young with such a destructive power. It wasn't her speed, strength, and her weapon that impressed him, but it was the fact that she was able to make people explode just by gripping her hand that impressed him. It was definitely a dangerous ability, but if such a power could be controlled…

"Those four intruders are something!" the chairman said with interest. "I must definitely have them studied!"

"But how do you plan to capture them?" Mercy asked him. "Your guards are doing a poor job against them. Sending more people after them will only result in more unnecessary lives lost…"

"I can grab guards from wherever I want!" he told her. "Plus, I'm not going to send people who can't get the job done after them!"

* * *

The four girls were too much for the guards to handle. Flandre was the one who scared them the most, as they have witnessed many of their comrades being brutally killed and made to explode by her. She was even smiling and laughing while doing this!

Just then, a voice was broadcasted and heard by everyone there. "Guards, leave this place at once! I will settle things here! Leave immediately if you value your life!" it said.

"It's the chairman's voice!" one of the guards said. "Leave at once! He probably has a plan for those four!" The guards heeded the chairman's order and then ran out of the room.

"Ha! Scared?" Yuugi taunted them. "Now you know you've messed with the wrong people! If you had prepared sake when I arrived, this wouldn't have happened!"

* * *

"Are you sure this is a good idea?" Mercy asked the chairman.

"Relax, Mercy!" the man told her while pressing away on a control panel that he got out on his desk. "I've test things several times already and am very sure that he will never go out of control. This is going to be the first time I'm pitting him against actual opponents, so I can't wait to see how efficient things will be!"

* * *

Now that the guards were gone, the four girls wondered what they should do next. Flandre had told them that they were told by someone called the "Chair Man" to leave the place, because something was going to happen, and it might cost them their lives.

"Looks like they're throwing the big gun at us," Yuugi said. "Obviously, that thing is so dangerous that it'll kill people, so their boss told them to leave!"

"I have a bad feeling about this…" Iku said with a worried expression. "We better leave this place before whatever will be thrown at us appears…"

"Oh, come on! Don't be such a coward!" Yuugi told her.

"There's a difference between cowardice and making wise decisions…" Iku told her.

As soon as she said that, a door that never opened until now opened, and standing behind it was a rather large being covered from head to toe in a green suit that hid his features completely. In place of his eyes were red circles made of red plastic. The girls got into defensive stances to get ready to defend themselves against whoever this person was.

"Who… Who is that…?" Utsuho asked with a nervous look.

"Must be the big gun!" said Yuugi, looking interested in wanting to fight him.

The being started walking in their direction slowly. Seeing this, Yuugi approached him while cracking her fists and said to him, "Are you the champion around here? You're here to fight us, right?"

The being didn't respond at all, however. He simply kept on walking, and when both sides were right in front of each other, they stopped. Yuugi looked up at the being's face and said, "Did you hear what I said just now? Or maybe you're not much of a talker. Maybe you're the silent type who lets his fists do all the talking! I don't mind that kind of people, actually, though hearing my opponents trash talk makes fights more interesting."

Suddenly, the being threw a punch at Yuugi's abdomen. Because it came without a warning and at a very fast speed, almost as fast as the blink of an eye, the oni didn't see it coming and therefore didn't dodge it. The other three girls quickly moved out of the way so they wouldn't get hit by her when she flew in their direction.

CRASH!

Yuugi came to a stop against a wall, which was dented rather inwards when she hit it. The oni fell forward and landed on her knees with her hands on the spot that got punched. The punch was EXTREMELY painful, perhaps the most painful punch she ever felt. It was a good thing she wasn't human, or else such the punch would've created a hole on her body.

The other girls turned to look at the being with shocked expressions, and Utsuho said, "I have never seen someone sending Yuugi away with a punch before! That guy must be very powerful to be able to do that!"

Despite getting punched really hard, Yuugi managed to stand back up. Ignoring the pain, which was starting to go away, she glared at the being and said to him with a smirk, "Quite a start, eh? I'm starting to like you already! It's my turn now! Eat this!"

The oni let out a cry as she ran towards the being and threw her fist at him. The being used his hand to catch her fist, but he wasn't able to stand perfectly still from getting hit by the oni's powerful punch. He slid back a few feet from grabbing her fist, but this feat surprised Yuugi greatly. The being then used his other hand to take a swing at her, but she quickly ducked and then pulled her hand out of his hand while jumping back.

"You're good!" she commented. The being suddenly moved forward at an unexpectedly fast speed and threw another punch, but she saw this coming and thus dodged it. The being threw several quick punches at her, but she managed to dodge all of them. Eventually, she threw a punch at his abdomen, but the being merely took a step back and didn't seem like it felt pain at all. It didn't even make any sound.

The being raised his arms into the air and then brought them down onto Yuugi, who jumped to the side. She then punched him hard in the waist, followed by a kick to the back. The being immediately turned to her after that and swung his hand at her, but she performed a cartwheel spin into the air to jump over it. Upon landing, Yuugi landed her fist against the being's abdomen and then followed up with a series of punches.

She put a lot of focus in trying to punch down the being, so much that she failed to avoid him grabbing her by the waist from both sides. The oni yelled for him to let go of her as he raised her over his head and then flung her across the room. She fell onto the floor while groaning in pain. Before she could try to stand back up, the being charged at her at a fast speed and shoulder bashed her through the wall.

SMAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAASH!

Yuugi flew back from the being and tumbled violently onto the floor, and when she came to a stop, the being caught up with her and lifted her into the air by the neck. He turned around and then punched her in the abdomen to send her flying back into the previous room, where she hit the wall really hard and made it bend inwards.

CRAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAASH!

The other three girls were shocked to see Yuugi beaten up badly, especially Utsuho. The oni groaned in pain and then fell forward onto the floor, having seemingly fallen unconscious. The others then turned to look at the being with looks of horror as he came back into the room.

"How dare you hurt Yuugi like that?! I'll avenge her!" Utsuho angrily said as she pointed her Third Leg at him and then fired an energy ball about the size of herself.

Instead of dodging it, the being swung his hand at the energy ball and destroyed it in a large explosion. A large amount of smoke filled the room upon the energy's ball destruction, and Utsuho thought she managed to defeat that being, only to be shocked at the sight of him still standing and looking unharmed. The part of his suit covering his hand was burned off, though, revealing gray skin underneath.

"What?! It didn't do anything against it?!" the hell raven said in shock.

"I'll get it!" Flandre said as she flew towards the being, but Iku told her to stop. The young vampire swung the Laevatein at him, but was shocked to see him grabbing it and stopping it with no effort.

The being pulled the Laevatein out of her hand and flung it towards a wall before trying to punch her, but she quickly flew out of the fist's way. "Clock that Ticks Away the Past!" Flandre shouted as she formed a blue energy "X" in her hand to throw at him. The being simply punched through the projectile to destroy it while dashing forward, much to Flandre's surprise, which resulted in her being hit by his fist and getting sent flying backwards.

Utsuho fired another energy ball at him, but the being destroyed it with a swing of an arm again before charging at her. Utsuho and Iku quickly got out of the way before the being got too close, and then the latter fired a blast of electricity at him, but it didn't appear to do any harm to him. The being turned to her and then jumped at her to smash her with his fist, but she quickly moved to the side while continuing to blast him with electricity. At the same time, Utsuho fired smaller energy balls rapidly at his back.

Despite getting hit rapidly in two different directions, the being didn't seem fazed at all. If anything, he seemed to be annoyed at getting hit nonstop. He raised his leg into the air and then stomped the floor really hard to cause the whole place to shake, not to mention creating a shockwave that struck Iku and Utsuho's feet, knocking them over.

Iku groaned in pain while trying to get back up, but before she had the chance to do so, the being jumped behind her and then lifted her into the air by her legs. Immediately after that, the being jumped at Utsuho, who was still down on her front, and swung down the horrified Iku onto her, using her as a bludgeon to hit the hell raven in the back.

SMACK!

Utsuho cried in pain from getting struck in the back really hard, and the being repeated this action over and over, hurting both her and Iku greatly. Iku eventually fell unconscious from being used a bludgeon for too long, and then the being threw her away before picking up the crying and frightened Utsuho by the back of her head. As the hell raven looked at the being with a horrified face full of tears, he spun around and flung her against the nearest wall really hard.

BAAAAAAAAANG!

With that, the hell raven fell unconscious onto the floor.

* * *

Mercy and the chairman saw everything from the screen, and the latter had a wicked smile on his face. "Well, that's that! That was fun while it lasted!" he said. "I'm sure I'll have more fun finding out what more they are capable of once they're studied! Mercy, arrange for them to be…"

Before he could finish his sentence, he suddenly saw the being explode into pieces, much to his surprise.

* * *

With an angry expression on her face, Flandre looked at where the being used to be with a clenched hand pointing in that direction. All that was left of him after the explosion was a pair of feet that had smoke coming out from above.

"I did it…" she said to herself in relief. She lowered her arm and then took a deep breath, glad that she managed to destroy that powerful and dangerous being.

But then she saw something that shocked her greatly…

* * *

The sound of painful beatings, explosions, and even screaming could be heard coming from the speakers of the screen. The chairman watched with a wicked smile on his face. He was clearly enjoying what he was seeing. Mercy, however, didn't show any form of expression. It was as if she didn't care about what she was seeing at all.

Eventually, the screaming came to a stop, so did the sound of punching, stomping, smashing, and slamming. The chairman had a satisfied look on his face, knowing that all four girls were down for the count. He couldn't exactly tell if any of them were still alive, but since he had already given orders to that being beforehand not to kill them, that shouldn't have happen. Even if they died, he could still find a way around things, but he'd rather that they be alive.

"Looks like our intruders are taken care of!" said the chairman with an evil smile. "Mercy, have all four of them taken in captivity at once. I want my scientists to find out as much as they can about them."

"It will be done at once, Mister Luthor," Mercy said to him.

* * *

TO BE CONTINUED

**Trivia:  
**1. I watched the airplane rescue scene in Superman Returns to help myself type out the space shuttle part in the first chapter.


	5. On the Same Side

**SBS Time!  
L-Over'9000'lord: **Flandre, villains not getting what they deserve, Evil by Nature has a bad ending, "The Dark Knight" style ending is intentional or not, etc…  
**Game2002: **I apologize if you do not like what you read, but I'm not the kind of person who always makes cheerful and tame story contents. Evil by Nature's ending is intended to be a happy one, but at the same time, it leaves behind the reminder that things will not always be peaceful, so one must always beware. As long as the villain received justice, even if s/he managed to win by proving something, it's still good enough for me.

Human Being is indeed inspired by The Dark Knight version of the Joker, albeit less… cheerful. I can't be sure if the ending is inspired by that movie's. Medicine's role was indeed inspired by Two-Face's role, but I came up with the ending the way I see fit without thinking too much. Maybe the ending of that movie did serve as the inspiration for my story's ending, or maybe not…

Again, I apologize if you do not like what you read in the previous chapter and the ending of Evil by Nature. Please keep in mind that this story has just started, so it's not like what you read in the previous chapter is settled there and will never be brought up again. Also, please don't jump to conclusions about my stories. As for the ending, there's nothing I can do to compensate your displeasure of it. Not every ending is a perfect or good one for everybody. As long as the people of Gensokyo are free from the terror of a dangerous criminal and can live more peacefully, that's a good enough ending for me.

One last note: please patiently sit through this story first. You're basically demanding me to make this story the way you want it to be.

I'm sorry if I offended you, but your constant reviews of bringing up the same thing have already annoyed me. I was fine with your reviews at first, but the latest one, honestly speaking, got on my nerves, and I can't even PM you, so I had to patiently finish this chapter first before I can tell you all these.

Again, this is my story, so you do not have the right to tell me what to do. If you don't like it, there is nothing you can do about it. Not everything can satisfy everyone after all. Furthermore, you keep on jumping to conclusions as if everything will happen exactly like the way you think it will be. Are you so confident that such things will without doubt happen? Have I touched a very sensitive nerve of yours?

Please, please, please… Calm yourself down and read the story without thinking too much and overreacting. This story has just begun, and you are already acting as if everything has been set in stone and will turn for the worse.

Do you know what will happen next? Do you know how things will progress? Do you really think everything will be exactly like you fear? You do not know how exactly things will be, but I know, even if I don't have everything planned out in details yet, so _**PLEASE STOP**_ ranting like you know everything and give me orders on what to do with my story.

And revealing to you who that being is? Right… asking for what should be kept a secret for now to be revealed right here and now… I really want to face palm, but I can't, since I only have two hands, which aren't enough…

Again, I apologize if what I said offended you, but your attitude really did tick me off. I apologize if you don't like what you read currently and what happened in Evil by Nature, but I cannot do anything about the latter. That plotline is finished, and I have no intention to go back to it again, so just _**deal with it**_.

If you continue to act like this, even after reading this, then I will start ignoring you and may even delete all your reviews. In fact, I may even go ahead and delete your current reviews anytime I want.

And there you go, my longest review reply ever…

* * *

**Chapter 5  
On the Same Side**

Wonder Woman had told the other members about what she heard Suwako said, and they were all surprised that their land had been invaded by the Cybroxes. When Suwako asked if they knew who those cyborgs were, Martian Manhunter told her they invaded the planet before, but the league managed to defeat them and force them to surrender.

"Wow… Never would've thought that those folks haven't learned their lesson yet…" Cyborg said. "I can still clearly remember their leader begging for mercy in front of the founding members!"

"Some people simply don't learn, no matter what…" Nightwing said while thinking of the criminals he fought before, mainly the ones in Gotham City.

"You girls actually managed to destroy them for good? That's quite something!" Green Arrow said to them.

"Yeah! I was one of those people who contributed to their defeat!" Tenshi said in her native language, which was then translated by Eirin. "It was a simple plan! Make every single one of them die using their boss's computer, plant bombs in their main ship's reactor, send the ship back to where it came from, and then evacuate before setting off the bombs! You can be sure that they'll never terrorize anyone again! And just so you know, I was the one who gave their leader the finishing blow! Even if he managed to survive my ultimate attack, the ship's explosion should've finished him off!"

"Pretty smart thinking!" Nightwing commented. "All Superman did was fight their leader until he surrendered, and then we told them to leave this planet and never come back again."

"It's not our right to take lives after all, so we spared them," Wonder Woman said. "At least Superman wanted them spared…"

"Yeah, boy scout and all… Nicest guy in the world…" Green Arrow said. "Not saying it's a bad thing, mind you…"

"So… what's your people's story here?" Suwako asked the league members. "You people look like superheroes found on television shows and comic books. How come I never heard of you before?"

Just when Martian Manhunter was going to answer her, the computer gave off a sound again, so everyone turned to it as Cyborg walked up to it.

"It's me, Cyborg," he said after pressing a button for accepting the call signal.

"It's me, Plaz!" said the voice from the other side.

"Plastic Man! I thought you were asleep!" Cyborg said. "Called you a while ago, but you didn't answer your phone at all, so I figured that you already turned in for the night."

"Ramona woke me up suddenly, and she looked completely freaked out," said the voice belonging to someone named Plastic Man. "She told me she saw a disembodied head floating outside the window, but I didn't see anything when I looked out, though."

"A floating head…?" asked Eirin while raising an eyebrow.

"And then I noticed your message on my communicator about a boom tube appearing in my vicinity, so I decided to call you for more details," Plastic Man continued. "Is our world being invaded by aliens… in the middle of the night?"

"That's what we thought at first, but things turned out to be more different than we thought," Cyborg told him. "Let's put it this way: those aliens are actually friendly and are currently here in the Watchtower, so if you manage to find those aliens, let me know, and I'll beam you all up."

"Friendly aliens? Well, they sure know when to pick a time to come pay us a visit!" said Plastic Man a joking manner. "How do they look like? Are they green? Do they have big heads? Or are they small, gray, and have big, black eyes?"

"Think Superman," Cyborg replied.

"Oh, Superman lookalikes! I get it!" Plastic Man said.

"That's not exactly what I mean…" Cyborg told him.

Suddenly, a woman's voice could be heard coming from where Plastic Man was. After a few seconds, Plastic Man said to Cyborg, "Um… Please wait a minute… My wife is telling me that the floating head is next door, and the neighbor is screaming at the sight of it… I'll get back to you after taking care of that and also finding those aliens… See ya!" Then he ended the call.

"Why do I have the feeling that he's going to make a mess out of things…?" Cyborg said.

"That's Plaz to you," Nightwing said to him.

"So… a floating head, huh?" Eirin suddenly asked. "Have you people encountered anything like that here before?"

"That sounds creepy…" said Green Arrow, imagining a floating head of a man in his head.

"None of that I know," Wonder Woman replied. "However, there are stories and legends of such things in some countries."

"If none of you here have ever encountered cases of floating heads before, then I think I may know who your friend saw…" Eirin told the league members.

There was a call signal coming from the computer again, so Cyborg looked at it and said it was a permission to be asked to be beamed up to the Watchtower and that it was from someone named Jon Stewart. He pressed a button to make the teleporter bring up that man.

Everyone turned to look at the teleporter as a beam of light covered it, and when it was gone, an African American wearing a green and black suit appeared, and behind him were Nitori and another person inside a green sphere that was connected to a ring on his finger via a green beam.

When Nitori saw her own people, she was excited and ran up to them. "Wow! Didn't expect to see you guys here!" she said.

"Who are those people?" the man named Jon asked.

"The ones who came out of the boom tube," Martian Manhunter told him. "Don't worry; they're not dangerous, and they actually got here unintentionally."

"Yeah, that's the story I heard from the girl who arrived here with me," Jon said. "She assured me that she is no troublemaker. This… on the other hand…" He brought the green sphere over in front of himself to show the others who was inside it.

It was a blue-haired girl with white, angelic wings wearing a white dress with detached sleeves, and there was a blood splatter on her dress. Her hands were also cuffed together at the front by a pair of green handcuffs made of energy.

The league members were surprised at the sight of the girl with a bloody dress, even the girls from Gensokyo. Sara, however, was surprised for another reason, for it was someone she knew well. "Mai!" she said.

Jon turned to her and asked, "You know her?"

Sara nodded. "Yes, she comes from the place I come from."

"What happened, Jon?" Wonder Woman asked him. "Why is that girl covered in blood? Is she injured?"

"One of those people who take things to the extreme when fighting crime," Jon replied.

"Taking things to the extreme when fighting crime?" Green Arrow asked. "You mean…?"

Before he could finish his phrase, Jon said, "When I saw her, she was stopping a store robber, and she killed him. Stabbed him with something sharp in the guts when he ran in her direction and then slit his throat, all in a matter of seconds and without saying anything…"

Everyone turned to look at Mai with wide open eyes, and Sara angrily said to her, "Mai! You did it again, didn't you?! How many times have we told you to stop your murderous ways?!"

"I was simply doing society a favor by getting rid of trash," she replied without looking at her.

"That doesn't give you the reason to kill!" Sara said to her.

"Is your friend always like that?" Martian Manhunter asked Sara.

Sara turned to him and replied, "Yes… she is… though not when she was younger… We've told her several times about this and even punished her, but… she never changed her ways… People fear her in where we come from… She always takes things too far when dealing with lawbreakers… Even if she doesn't kill people, she at least leaves them brutally beaten up or crippled…"

"A case of Red Hood we have here, don't we?" Nightwing asked. "I'm sure they'll get along with each other just fine…"

"I couldn't leave her alone, seeing how she killed a person, even if he was a robber," Jon said to the league members, "so I told her to come to this place with me, but then another robbery happened in a nearby place, and without saying anything, she rushed over there, presumably to kill those robbers as well, but I stopped her. Oh…" Then he looked at Nitori. "That girl was with her when I spotted the latter, but she was shocked by her killing that robber."

"Yeah… Scared me a lot…" Nitori said. "I never met her before, but since we were thrown out of the same portal, I could tell she was also from Gensokyo…"

The computer gave off a call signal again, and this time, Cyborg looked and said it was from Plastic Man. He pressed the button for teleporting him onto the Watchtower, and when the beam of light disappeared, a strange sight was seen on the teleportation pad.

A headless body dressed in a black shirt, red skirt, and a red cape was bound together with a metal trash can by some kind of red and pale orange matter that had a human head wearing a pair of shades. The headless body, which was feminine in figure, was struggling to break free from the red mass, while the trash can was shaking, and there was even a voice coming from inside it, shouting angrily in Japanese.

"I caught the floating head Ramona said and her body!" said the red mass with a human head—Plastic Man. "The head is inside this trash can! I don't know what to do with it, so I brought her back here! Quick! Tell me what do to!"

Eirin looked at the headless body and listened to the voice coming from inside the trash can, and then she said, "Yep, it's her all right…"

"Whoa, really?! No head?!" Green Arrow said in surprise while looking at the body. "And the head… It's in there?!"

"This is creepy…" Nightwing commented.

"Sir, would you please let her go?" Eirin asked Plastic Man. "It's all right. She's someone I know. We can explain things to her. I'm sure she won't be of harm after being explained."

"Who are you?" Plastic Man asked her.

"They're the ones who came out of the boom tube," Martian Manhunter told him. "Don't worry; they come in peace."

"Oh, so that's what Cyborg means when he said you aliens are Superman lookalikes! He means you all look like humans!" Plastic Man said. "And I was thinking you all look just like him!"

"Would you mind letting her go now?" Eirin asked him again.

"She's pretty angry, so please calm her down as soon as possible, okay?" Plastic Man asked, and then he released the headless body and the trash can and returned to his normal form. The trash can fell onto the floor, which resulted in the lid falling off and letting a girl's head with red hair and a blue bowtie fly out.

The body floated away from Plastic Man, and then the head floated over to the body and hovered a few inches above it while glaring at him with gritted teeth. "You are so dead!" said the head as purplish balls of fire appeared on the body's hands.

"Sekibanki! Stop!" Eirin said to her. "It's a misunderstanding!"

The head turned to Eirin and was surprised to see her and a few other familiar faces. "What are you people doing here?" she asked.

"These people aren't our enemies," Eirin told her. "Your presence simply surprised the person who put your head in the trash can. Nobody here ever saw a rokurokubi before, so it's obvious he would freak out."

"That lady's right! I've never seen something like you before, so it's really freaky!" Plastic Man said to Sekibanki with his hands pointing at her in a defensive manner. "No hard feelings, okay?"

Sekibanki looked at Plastic Man with a frustrated face, and then her head returned to the body and attached itself to the neck, while the balls of fire on her hands disappeared. "Fine…" she grumbled.

There was a call signal coming from the computer again, and Cyborg sighed as he went over to it. It was starting to get tiring receiving lots of call signals in a short amount of time…

It wasn't a signal to be teleported to the Watchtower, however, but rather, a normal call. "This is Batman," said the voice from the other side.

"Yeah, I got your message," Cyborg replied. "How are things over there, Bats?"

"I've caught four of the supposed invaders who came out of the boom tube," Batman replied. "I'm going to investigate the other boom tubes, but I need to make sure that these four do not run loose, so I'm going to have them sent to the Watchtower."

"Got it," Cyborg said. "I assume you didn't have a friendly encounter with them, right?"

"No," Batman straightforwardly replied. "They won't be in a good mood, so I advice that they be locked away first."

"Actually, we can deal with that without a problem," Cyborg told him. "I'll pinpoint your location first. You stand next to those four, and when I tell you to move, you move, okay? That way, only those four will be beamed up here."

"Got it," Batman replied.

Cyborg then pinpointed Batman's location using the computer, and when he found him, he put his hand on the button for teleporting him to the Watchtower before saying "now", and then he pressed it. Chen, Nazrin, Kurumi, and Meiling, seated and bound together in a circle, then appeared on the teleportation pad.

"Oh, it's you guys!" Nitori said to the four, who were surprised to see people they were familiar with.

"You guys! Are you all captured by that guy who dresses up as a bat too?" Meiling asked the residents of Gensokyo.

"Don't misunderstand," Suwako told her. "Things aren't what they actually look like."

* * *

The Batmobile stopped in front of a park that had a few police cars parked there. When the Dark Knight stepped out, he saw the policemen taking a man with brown hair dressed in green clothing and a top hat of the same color into a prison truck. While he was being escorted in there, the man was saying while lamenting, "Alice… Why…? Why don't you love me…? Why…?"

After the man was locked inside the truck, Batman turned to Commissioner Gordon and asked him, "Commissioner, what happened?"

"Your sidekick Katana subdued the Mad Hatter," Gordon told him. "Well, to be precise, it was really the doing of a girl I've never seen before."

Batman raised an eyebrow underneath his cowl and then asked, "What girl? Where is she?"

Gordon turned to the entrance of the park and said, "She's over there with Katana."

Batman then walked over to where the commissioner looked at and saw a black-haired Japanese woman dressed in black with a matching color mask over her eyes and a blond girl dressed in a mostly light blue dress. "Katana, who is this?" Batman asked the former.

"Batman! You're here!" the Japanese woman—Katana—said to him. "I received a message from Oracle about boom tubes appearing all over the place, so I came to the one located here. When I got here, I saw this girl being attacked by the Mad Hatter, so I jumped in to save her, but in the end, it was her who managed to subdue him. It's quite surprising what she can do!"

"Who is this?" the blond girl asked Katana in Japanese.

"He's Batman, my mentor," Katana replied in the same language.

"Batman?" the girl curiously said while looking at the Dark Knight from head to toe. "Sounds like English for "bat man"… Considering your getup, I wouldn't be surprised if it is supposed to mean that…"

"You speak Japanese, but you look like a Westerner," Batman said to her in her native language. "Did you come out of a portal?"

"Right! That's what I wanted to say next!" Katana said. "I had a talk with her, and she said she got sucked into a portal from where she came from and landed in that park."

"I later encounter that strange man having a tea party with various people dressed up as characters from the story Alice in Wonderland," said the blond girl, continuing the story for her. "When he saw me, it was as if he was struck by something, as he came up to me with a look of awe or something like that and asked what my name is. When I told him my name, he became even more shocked and then started to treat me nicely. It was as if I was his lover…"

"Your name? What is your name?" Batman asked her.

"Alice Margatroid," the girl replied.

"Alice… That explains that," Batman said.

"What do you mean?" Alice asked.

"The Mad Hatter believes himself to be the reincarnation of the character of the same name from Alice in Wonderland, and he is obsessed with the character Alice," Batman explained. "He is the master of mind control and uses special hats he made himself to control people." Then he turned to some people wearing costumes nearby talking to the police. "The people you see dressed as characters from that story are actually controlled by him. Because of his obsession for Alice, he would kidnap blond girls, thinking they are Alice. In the end, however, he would kill them when he thinks they aren't the Alice he is looking for. You're blond, and your name is actually Alice, so that explains why he looks like he fell in love with you."

"Okay… He's weird all right…" Alice commented with a weird expression that was the result of hearing what Batman said.

"Back to my question," Batman said. "You came out of a portal, right? Are there any more of you?"

Alice shook her head. "I'm the only one here. However, I saw many people getting sucked into the portal back in my homeland. I assume we all got dropped out in different places…"

"Do you happen to know a girl with cat ears, another one with mouse ears, one with bat wings and claiming to be a vampire, and a Chinese woman?" Batman asked her.

Alice widened her eyes in surprise. "Two of them must be Nazrin and Meiling! Have you met them?"

"Yes, and I have them sent to people I trust after fighting them, because they mistook me for their enemy and attacked me," Batman told her.

"I can understand why they did that," Alice said. "After all, our homeland was invaded by never-seen-before beings before we got sucked in a portal they used for getting there, so they must've assumed this is where they come from. Honestly speaking, this really doesn't strike me as the place they come from…"

"I can take you to meet your friends," Batman told her. "However, I need to be sure that you can be trusted and do not have any malicious intentions."

"He's… a paranoid person," Katana said to Alice. "You'll have to bear with it if you're new to him… He's actually a nice fellow if you get to know him, though."

* * *

Robin and Red Robin arrived at the spot where another boom tube in Gotham City had previously appeared, in front of a costume shop. The duo looked around for possible signs that could let them know where the ones who came out of the boom tube went, but there were none. "Looks like we're too late…" Red Robin said. "Don't think we'll ever find them like this…"

"There are lots of places they can go to," Robin said while looking at the possible places they could have gone to, such as inside the buildings, the alleys, and even the sewer.

"I doubt those people are dangerous," Red Robin said. "Batman implied that they are more of… confused…"

"Still, it's not a good idea to let them run loose here," Robin told him. "They're in a place unfamiliar to them, so who knows what sort of trouble they'll get themselves into?"

"You have a point there," Red Robin agreed. "C'mon, let's continue taking a look around here."

Then they ran down the street to start searching, though had they decided to start with the costume shop or even look through its window, they would've noticed two figures standing way in the back, doing what appeared to be "shopping" for something to wear.

* * *

TO BE CONTINUED

You can thank L-Over'9000'lord for making me rush out this chapter, just so I can respond to him/her.

The Mad Hatter uses the same design from Batman: Arkham City.


	6. So Close Yet So Far

**SBS Time!  
****Ciruno Rowe 'Augmented Conduit****:** Thought I could request a reference to a character called Cole MacGrath. Nothing little, just that electric man grinding on the wires absorbing some electricity…  
**Game2002: **Since Cole doesn't exist in the DC universe, I don't have intentions to make any references to him.

**Chapter 6  
So Close Yet So Far**

* * *

Japan…

At last, home was not far for the residents of Gensokyo!

Who would've thought they would be able to get home sooner than expected! All it took was for the Justice League's Watchtower to teleport them to the outside world version of the Hakurei Shrine, and there, they could return to Gensokyo.

And just like that, everything was coming to an end soon, until Suwako, Eirin, and Keine widened their eyes upon seeing something. Or rather, not seeing something…

"Where's the Hakurei Shrine?!" Suwako said in shock.

Indeed, the place where the Hakurei Shrine was supposed to be was nowhere to be seen at all. In fact, the place they were currently at didn't resemble a shrine grounds either. The three ladies looked around in surprise at the place that was supposed to be the entrance back home, but nothing looked familiar to them at all. All they saw was a hill covered in trees, and there was a signpost nearby, pointing to the direction of the nearest place of civilization.

"Did we come to the right place?" Eirin asked. "The Hakurei Shrine is supposed to be here!"

Martian Manhunter, Wonder Woman, and Dr. Fate were standby nearby, and the latter said, "I do not sense any form of magical power or anything unnatural in the atmosphere. If the method you said for returning to your homeland is true, then my magic should be able to let me sense something. Yet, I sense absolutely nothing…"

The three ladies were confused about why things were like this, and then Martian Manhunter said, "This is without doubt the place you told us, but seeing how it looks very different from what you expected, there is only one possible explanation for this."

The three ladies turned to him, and Suwako asked, "What is it?"

Martian Manhunter said nothing for a few seconds, and then he finally said, "You are in an entirely different universe."

"A different universe?" Eirin curiously said. "So the concept of multiple universes is true…"

"That explains why I never heard of you people before when I was in the outside world…" Suwako said to the league members. "You exist in a different universe, and we are currently in your universe!"

"I fear that is the case," Dr. Fate said. "In this universe, your homeland does not exist. In the same way, we do not exist in your universe."

The three ladies traded uneasy looks with each other, and then Keine turned to the three members of the Justice League and said, "I guess it's going to take a lot more for us to get back home… Thank you for taking us here and letting us find out the truth, though."

"We're sorry that we couldn't be of help…" Wonder Woman said to her in an apologetic tone. "However, since it is the job of the Justice League to help people who are in need, we will do whatever is in our power to get you all back to your own universe."

"We appreciate your help!" Suwako said.

"Let's go back to the Watchtower and talk about this," Martian Manhunter suggested. He then placed his hand next to his ear and called for Cyborg using a wireless communicator to teleport them back to the Watchtower, and that was exactly what happened.

* * *

The Moriya Shrine…

After the invasion of the Cybroxes had come to an end, Kanako summoned certain people to her shrine to have a meeting regarding what happened after the defeat of those cyborg invaders.

Gathered around a table in the living room of the Moriya Shrine was Kanako herself, Yukari, Ran, Yuyuko, Patchouli, Eiki, Satori, and Shinki.

"You know the reason why I gathered you here," said Kanako, starting the meeting. "I'm sure you all saw what happened shortly after the portal that the invader used for coming to our world disappeared."

"Another portal appeared, and people were pulled into it, apparently," Yukari said. "I hid inside the gap I used for sheltering the civilians, so I didn't see who got pulled into it, other than my shikigami's shikigami."

"I'm worried about Youmu…" Yuyuko said in a worried tone. "I didn't see her getting pulled up that portal, but since she didn't return to Hakugyoukuro, that must mean she was one of those people who got pulled into it…"

"Alice, Mai, Yuki, and Sara didn't return as well…" Shinki said in the same tone. "I hope they're all right wherever they are currently…"

"I know you're all worried about the people you know who were supposedly pulled into that portal," Kanako said to everyone, "but we have another issue to worry about, and that is how do we find out where they are and bring them back."

"I didn't see the portal nor did I know about it until the fairy maids told me what happened," Patchouli said. "If I did see it, then I might be able to look it up and find out exactly what it is. That way, I might be able to find a way to open up the same kind of portal to bring them back."

"Speaking of portals, isn't Lady Yakumo supposed to be able to travel to different places using something similar?" Shinki asked Yukari while turning her head to her. "Why don't you find them using that ability?"

"It's not as easy as you think," said Yukari, turning her eyes to her. "If I do not know where they went, then even my ability won't be of help."

"Is there really no way we can bring them back?" Satori asked. "I also just remembered that the Great Hakurei Barrier cannot stand forever without the Hakurei shrine maiden."

"That indeed is a problem," Yukari said with a nod. "Without Reimu, I can still hold up the barrier for some time, but we still need to find out where she is and bring her back before the barrier disappears."

"How long can you hold up the barrier?" Kanako asked her.

"About a month," Yukari replied. "After that, the barrier will start to weaken, and then it will take a few days, at most a week, before it disappears completely."

"If the worst does happen, then I hope that the sudden appearance of a new area on the map won't make the outside world too curious…" Patchouli said. "Anyway, despite not knowing the true nature of that portal, I will still look up on everything I can and see if I can find out anything related to that."

"We'll have to use whatever resource we can to find out where they went to and also how to bring them back," Kanako said. "The science department may be missing brilliant minds like Rikako Asakurah and Nitori Kawashiro, but that doesn't mean we're going to give up on finding out where they are! We'll definitely give everything we have to bring them back!"

"I will ask the other judges of the dead and also the highest order of gods to see if they can help," Eiki said. "We need to know if they are still in this universe or not first."

* * *

"So they're from an alternate universe?" Green Arrow asked after hearing the result of the search for the outside version of the Hakurei shrine. "Guess that's why the girl wearing the hat with eyes never heard of us… Unless she's been around before we started our jobs, there's no way she couldn't have heard about us. I'm not bragging, but I'm very sure that the Justice League is known throughout the world, even if we mainly operate in the U.S."

"I've been around before any of you were born," Suwako told him.

Green Arrow gave her a strange look for a few seconds, and then he remembered something. "Right, you're a goddess, or so Wonder Woman claims… Deities are supposed to be immortal, so I guess what you said makes sense…"

Most of the other residents of Gensokyo all had worried faces after hearing that they were in a universe where Gensokyo didn't exist, as they were scared that they would never be able to go back home.

While they were worrying about this, Eirin said to them, "Don't worry; I'm sure those back home will definitely find a way to find us and bring us back. Unless Yukari is here, she should be able to find us eventually. If she is here, however, I'm sure we definitely won't have to worry about going back. I'm sure all or most of you here should be familiar with her ability."

"Yeah," Nitori said with a nod. "She can create portals to travel to wherever she wants to. I heard that she claims to have gone to other universes as well!"

"You have someone back in your homeland that can do that? Wow! That's handy!" said Cyborg, sounding surprised and interested.

"Yep," Eirin said as she turned to him. "She's one of the most powerful denizens of Gensokyo, but she's known to be somewhat of a troublemaker at times too. She's not an evil person, however."

"I would love to hear more about your world and the people there!" Wonder Woman said with interest.

"We can save that for when most or all of the league members are present," Batman suggested, "and also when we managed to find most or all of you. Speaking of which, do you know how many of you are sent over here?"

Suwako and Eirin looked at the girls that were currently present. The number had increased a bit since Meiling's group arrived. Batman brought back Alice, Hawkman and Hawkgirl brought back Youmu and Yoshika, and Red Tornado brought back the Tsukumo Sisters, Lunasa, and Orange. According to the red android, the intruder alarm went off in Mt. Justice when these four suddenly showed up. It was only after subduing them did he receive Cyborg's message about boom tubes.

"So they'll be staying in this world in the meantime, right?" Nightwing asked.

"It's not like they have any other options… Until we figure out how to send them back to their own world, they have no choice but to stay here," Cyborg said to him. "Actually, it's not the issue of creating a portal that will bring them back, as our technology is advanced enough for us to do that. It's the fact that we do not know which universe they come from that makes this an issue."

"Indeed," Martian Manhunter agreed with a nod. "There are millions of universes out there, so without any way to pinpoint where you people come from, it's going to take forever to find your universe."

"Did they not say there is someone from their universe who is capable of traveling to different universes with ease? I guess their best bet is to wait for that person to come and find them, then," Plastic Man said. "Even so, I think it's going to take him or her a long time to do so…"

"Then we'll have to provide them with accommodation until that person finds them. We have spare rooms on the Watchtower, so we can let them stay there," Wonder Woman suggested.

"The Watchtower is not a hotel," Batman told her. "Only league members have the permission to stay here permanently. We cannot allow the risk of letting something happen to this place."

"You talk as if we may try something funny…" Suwako said to him.

Batman looked at her and said, "I never trust anyone completely!"

Suwako narrow her eyes. "Okay… I'll pretend that you have some sort of a messed up past that you're like that…"

Ignoring what she said, Batman said the girls, "You can stay here temporarily, but you will all move to the Hall of Justice tomorrow or so. That's our second headquarters located on Earth and is also something of a public attraction. You can stay there until we find a way to send you all back."

"Well, since you obviously know what's best for us here, we'll go with what you said," Eirin said to Batman.

* * *

Waking up in the middle of the night wasn't something most people like to, though there were times when doing this was necessary, such as when having to use the bathroom.

That was the case with Booster Gold, who was originally sleeping peacefully. When he approached the door to go to the bathroom, it automatically slid open, and the first thing he saw were the girls of Gensokyo walking down the hallway. He watched them with sleepy eyes that he rubbed to make sure he wasn't seeing things, and some of them greeted him as they walked by.

After the last of the girls had walked past him, he watched them go down the hallway and said to himself, "When did this place become popular with girls…?"

* * *

"We have a lot of spare rooms, but you'll still need to share, seeing how there is quite a number of you," Wonder Woman said as she led Youmu and Alice into a room. It was as relatively simple bedroom that contained pieces of furniture usually found in one, such as a bed, a closet, and a desk. There was also a window that showed the scenery of space. However, as this window was on the side of the Watchtower that was facing away from Earth, the planet couldn't be seen.

"Nice room!" Youmu commented while looking around. "I think this is the first time I'm in an outside world-style room."

"My room is made in this style, so this is nothing new to me," Alice said.

Wonder Woman walked over to the bed, which was only big enough for one person, and revealed that there was an additional mattress stored away underneath it on a drawer. "Now two people can sleep in this room!" she told them. "I hope this place is okay with you until we find a better place to accommodate you."

"This room is good enough as it is, so it's all right!" Youmu said to her politely. "We appreciate your kindness for giving us lodging places!"

"Indeed," Alice said with a nod. "You do not have to burden yourself with giving us the best of everything. Something like this is good enough already."

"I'm glad you like this room!" Wonder Woman said to them with a smile. "Please feel free to treat this place as your home, and if you ever want to go to Earth, feel free to let me or any member of the league know! I'm sure they're all more than willing to help!"

"Thank you very much!" Youmu said to her.

"By the way, your Japanese is very good!" Alice said to Wonder Woman.

"I had practice in various languages!" Wonder Woman told her.

After they were done talking to each other, Wonder Woman said good night to them and then left the room. Alice sat down on the bed and looked at the scenery outside the window. "This is the first time I'm seeing space," she said. "The stars are quite a sight! It's so different from the view on Earth!"

"Me too," said Youmu, looking at the same sight. "Never thought there would be a day I would be off the planet I live on… Pity that we can't see it from this side…"

"Yeah, it would be nice if we can see it…" Alice said. "I bet the experience must be different from seeing it on books!"

Youmu walked over to the closet and opened it to see that it contained two gender-neutral pajamas, a pillow, and a blanket. She unstrapped her swords from her waist and put them in there while saying, "Lady Yuyuko must be worried about me. I'm also wondering if she did get pulled into this world…"

"Where was she when that portal appeared?" Alice asked her.

"She was back in Hakugyoukuro," Youmu told her as she took out the pillow and the blanket. "She didn't participate in the battle against the invaders. I think she should be safe from that portal there…"

"So I guess she's not in this universe, then," Alice said as she watched Youmu place the pillow and the blanket onto the mattress Wonder Woman pulled out from underneath the bed.

"So she must be very worried about my absence now," Youmu said. "I wonder if she'll be all right without me…"

"It's not like she can't protect herself or do anything competent without you," Alice told her. "I'm sure she can live without you cooking for her and such, right?"

"That's true," said Youmu, lifting her head to look at her. "Just that she's not the most hard-working person and prefers to be served than to do things herself… Furthermore, she's not as good as I am in housekeeping…"

"She'll have to learn by herself now," Alice said. "By the way, you're going to sleep now? It's still afternoon in Japan."

"Well, the people here are from a country that is currently midnight, so I figured that we fit in by sleeping at the same time as them…" Youmu said to her. "Plus, fighting those invaders wore me out quite a bit, not to mention the fact that I fought that person named Hawkman…"

"What happened in the end?" Alice asked her.

"When he saw a… shadow demon leaving a building after robbing it, he went after him," Youmu told her. "Not one to let crime go by my eyes just like that, I chased that shadow demon as well. That's when Hawkman started to think I'm not his enemy, and together, we managed to stop that shadow demon. He later told his wife Hawkgirl, who was fighting Yoshika, that we are not their enemies."

* * *

Reimu wasn't sure if this was the worst morning ever in her life, but it sure was the most different morning of her life. Waking up with the sun shining down onto her face and scorching it definitely wasn't something she enjoyed. It couldn't be helped, considering that she spent the night with Kaguya on top of the building they found themselves on. They didn't want to take the risk of going to the bottom at night, and they weren't sure if it was all right or safe to go indoors, so that was really the only good option they could think of.

As if that wasn't enough, there was no water accessible nearby when they woke up to wash their faces and feel refreshed, though that was eventually resolved when they came across a fountain in a park. Now, however, they were faced with the problem of having no breakfast.

With empty stomachs, the two girls walked down the sidewalk, wondering what to do to fill their stomachs. "Ironic, isn't it?" Reimu asked Kaguya. "We're in a place where people clearly won't starve to death, yet we are currently starving…"

"Furthermore, we've seen places where they get food, but we don't have money, as least ones from this place, so we can't buy them…" Kaguya added. "I'm a princess… I should be able to get free food… This shouldn't be happening…"

"Now you know how life is like for the peasants," Reimu said to her.

"Are we the only ones here? How are we going to get back to Gensokyo? Where are we anyway?" Kaguya asked. "The people here are speaking a language I'm sure I know, but I can't seem to grasp what it is at the moment…"

"They say the outside world is a huge place, and this is my first time out here, so I don't know where we are…" Reimu told her.

"By the way, do you feel the ground shaking?" Kaguya asked the shrine maiden. "I've been feeling it since a few seconds ago…"

After hearing this, Reimu stood still to see if she could feel the pavement shaking. Indeed, she felt it shaking, and it was getting stronger and stronger. Suddenly, they saw people up ahead running in fright. Eventually, a 20-meter robot that looked like the tin toys children played with appeared from behind the corner of a building, stomping the pavement hard and crushing anything that was underneath its feet.

"What is that?!" Reimu said in shock.

The robot was one with a driver, and seated in the cockpit located inside its head was a somewhat pudgy man with orange hair dressed in a green suit and wearing a pair of eyeglasses—Winslow Scott, AKA "Toyman".

Toyman smiled evilly as he watched the monitor in front of him to see whatever the robot was looking at and destroying. Being one who enjoyed terrorizing people to prove his villainy, he liked watching the sight of people fleeing from him. The policemen were firing at his robot, but their bullets merely bounced off its tough exterior that was not made of tin, despite the whole thing made to resemble a tin toy.

Seeing that their weapons were useless against the robot and the fact that it was approaching them, the policemen ran for their lives to avoid getting crushed underneath its foot. One of them, after running a bit of a distance, turned around and shouted as loud as he could at the robot, "You won't get away with this, Toyman! Superman will definitely get you when he comes!"

The robot was designed with the function to let Toyman hear whatever sound was outside from the inside. He chuckled at hearing what the policeman said to him and then broadcasted his voice to everyone out there. "Tell him to come, then! If I have the guts to do this, then that means I have the guts to challenge him! Come out, Superman, wherever you are!"

The robot's chest then opened, revealing a large amount of missiles inside. The missiles were fired and flew in various directions to destroy buildings and also the pavement. Everyone ran while screaming to avoid getting caught in the blasts and also getting hit by the debris that were falling or sent flying.

As Toyman smiled with pleasure at the destruction he was causing, he suddenly saw Reimu flying in front of him. "Who are you?" he asked.

"I don't know if you can hear me or if you can understand me, but what you're doing is more than enough to prove to me that you're not a good person!" Reimu angrily said to him while pointing her gohei at him. "You better stop whatever you're doing now, or else I'll see to it that you get exterminated!"

"What's this? Japanese?" Toyman asked. "Sorry, but I don't understand your language, other than simple ones like 'ohayo' and 'gomenasai', so either you start speaking English or beat it!

Reimu didn't understand English, though she did hear and understand the words 'ohayo' and 'gomenasai'. Taking out several paper amulets, she said to the robot, "Since we can't understand each other, I might as well use force to make you comply!" Then she threw them at both the robot's eyes.

To Toyman's surprise, the amulets exploded, though the eyes weren't destroyed. "What the?! Did she just throw exploding paper?!" he asked. "How is that possible?!"

Reimu knew well that those amulets weren't enough to destroy a robot this big, but she thought she could at least disable its sight to hinder it. She moved back from the robot while continuing to throw exploding amulets at its eyes, trying to destroy them. The robot moved forward before reaching its hand toward her to grab her, but she flew out of the way while throwing amulets at that hand. When the robot swung that hand at her, she quickly flew up and then threw amulets at the head.

"Don't think you're safe from me just because you can fly!" Toyman angrily said as he made the robot look up at her. "Since you can fly without the aid of anything, is it possible you're the same race as Superman? Let's see how you react to this kryptonite beam!"

He pressed a button that caused the tip of the robot's antennas, which were positioned in a "v" formation, to release a trail of green electricity between each other, and then a lightning bolt of the same color was fired Reimu, who quickly moved to the side to dodge it. When another bolt was fired at her, she quickly created a barrier to protect herself from it, and it managed to block the bolt entirely.

"Lightning… If fighting Iku is a testament to things, then electric projectiles are a pain to dodge…" Reimu said to herself. "Better get rid of those things on its head first." She dodged another green bolt fired at her and flew behind the robot, and then she took out a miniature yin-yang orb that was red and white in color. "Yin-Yang Orb!" When she threw the orb, it grew in size until it was about the size of her body, not counting the limbs and the head.

The orb struck the part of the antennas that were close to the part connected to the head and caused it to bend forward. However, due to their flexibility, it quickly returned to its original position, and the orb was sent bouncing away. The robot turned around to face Reimu and then tried to slap her out of the sky, but the shrine maiden flew around at a fast speed while throwing exploding amulets at it nonstop.

"Stop moving, will ya?!" Toyman said in frustration. "If you're trying to wear me out by annoying me like a fly, then give it up! I won't fall for your petty tricks!" Suddenly, the robot was struck by colorful energy orbs, and when Toyman turned to their source, he saw Kaguya floating in the air with a branch that was decorated with jewels of various colors. "Now what?!"

Kaguya swung the Jeweled Branch of Hourai to make each of the jewels attached to it fire energy orbs at the robot. When the robot tried to grab her, she flew out of the way and swung her branch again to fire more energy orbs. It was now the Lunarian princess's turn to annoy him.

In the midst of trying to get Kaguya, the robot was suddenly struck from behind by a powerful force that caused it to fall forward. "Treasure Sign: Yin-Yang Orb!" It was Reimu, who used one of her spell cards to give it a powerful blow to the back.

Toyman struggled to keep the robot from falling and remain on its feet, but he was unable to do so. As the robot fell forward, Kaguya got underneath it and, after changing the Jeweled Branch of Hourai into a spell card, which she then put away underneath her kimono, raised her arms over her head. The robot came to a sudden halt, not from hitting the pavement, but from coming in contact with the Lunarian princess's bare hands.

Kaguya grunted as she mustered all her strength into her arms to keep the robot from pushing her down. Even with her superhuman strength, this robot was still very heavy for her to hold up. Needless to say, the onlookers were amazed at the strength she possessed.

While Kaguya was holding up the robot, Reimu flew close to her and said, "Continue holding it up! I'll give it the finishing blow!" Then she took out a spell card. "Spirit Sign: Fantasy Seal!" The card glowed with bright light and then fired several colorful orbs at the robot's face.

BANG BANG BANG BANG BANG BANG!

The energy orbs charred its face and created several cracks on the eyes, which Reimu took advantage of by flying towards one of them and then performing a flipping kick that shattered it. "Midair Ascension Kick!"

CRASH!

Toyman was surprised when the shrine maiden kicked her way into the cockpit. Not giving him the chance to say or do anything, Reimu rushed at him and grabbed him by the collar. "Guess the TV shows Sanae showed me about giant robots was spot on about the head usually being the place where there are people inside," she said.

"What are you saying?!" Toyman asked her in desperation, but instead of answering his question, which she couldn't understand anyway, she pulled him outside. "Hey! Let go of me!"

Because Reimu wasn't a strong person and Toyman was a pretty heavy fellow, they descended toward the pavement at a somewhat fast speed, but slow enough to not cause injuries upon hitting it. Kaguya, who was still holding up the robot, shouted out loud, "I don't think I can hold this thing up anymore!"

Toyman quickly got up and ran, only to come upon a pair of angry policemen, who quickly caught him before he could run somewhere else. Reimu quickly flew away from underneath the robot, and then Kaguya did the same afterwards. The robot fell forward and hit the pavement hard after that.

CRAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAASH!

"No! I won't accept this!" Toyman angrily shouted as the policemen dragged him towards their police car. "How can I lose to two little girls I've never met or heard of before?! I refuse to accept this! I refuse!" His shouting became softer after he was pushed into the car and the door was shut.

After the villain was taken away by the police, a large amount of people immediately gathered around Reimu and Kaguya, all of them amazed at their feats earlier. However, they spoke in a language that sounded unfamiliar to the former.

"What… What are they saying?" the shrine maiden asked. "Now that I think of it, I think I heard their language before, but I can't remember what it is and who said it to me…"

"I remember now!" Kaguya suddenly said. "It's English! Eirin knows how to speak it. I also know how to speak this language!"

"Then what are they saying?" Reimu asked her.

"Hold on a second…" Kaguya said to her, and then she tried to figure out what the crowd was saying to them. "I think they're praising us for taking out that giant robot earlier. They're also amazed at our powers."

"Powers?" Reimu curiously said. "Oh, yeah… This is the outside world after all, so they shouldn't have seen anything like this in their lives before…"

Suddenly, someone pointed at the sky and shouted out something, and this caused everyone to look at what he was pointing to. It was a man slowly floating towards the street, and everyone was pretty excited to see him. Reimu and Kaguya, being unfamiliar with that person, watched in awe at that person touching his feet against the street. "I didn't know people in the outside world can also fly!" Reimu said.

"Me too…" Kaguya said.

The man was wearing a bodysuit that was blue all over, and there was an emblem that resembled a red diamond containing the letter "S" on his chest. He also sported a red cape.

Judging by the reaction of the crowd, Reimu and Kaguya assumed that he must be a celebrity. They could also hear them constantly saying this one term that might be his name—Superman.

Superman approached the two girls while some people took pictures of them, and the Man of Steel looked at the fallen robot before looking at them. "Are you the ones who took down Toyman?" he asked.

"Sorry, I don't speak your language…" Reimu said to him in Japanese while waving her hand at him slightly.

Luckily for him, Superman understood Japanese, so he switched to speaking in that language. "I asked if you are the ones who took down Toyman."

"Oh, so you can speak Japanese!" Reimu said. "I assume you're talking about that robot… Yeah, we're the ones who took it down."

Superman looked at the robot again. "Incredible… You managed to bring down something the size of that! But then, I didn't see how you did it and what you're capable of…" Suddenly, he remembered something. "Wait a minute… Since you're speaking Japanese, and there are… Do you have friends who speak Japanese as well?"

"Friends? Yeah, I have a good number of friends, and they all speak Japanese," Reimu said to him. "Why'd you ask?"

Superman smiled. "Because I think I may have met them already!"

* * *

TO BE CONTINUED

The shadow demon Youmu talked about is the Shadow Thief, by the way.


	7. The Willpower to Steal

**Chapter 7  
The Willpower to Steal**

* * *

"Everyone?! You're all here!" Reimu said in surprise upon seeing the sight of some of the residents of Gensokyo after arriving at the Justice League Watchtower with Kaguya.

"Eirin! Reisen! You're both here!" exclaimed Kaguya, equally surprised.

"Princess! You're all right!" Reisen said in surprise upon seeing the Lunarian princess.

"It's good to see you safe and sound! I didn't expect to be able to see you so soon!" Eirin happily said.

As the girls reunited with and talked to each other about how things were and what had been happening, Superman watched from the side with some of the league members and said, "Two more found! How many more does that make?"

"We don't know," replied Martian Manhunter. "It could be possible that almost the entire population of their homeland got brought here."

"Then I guess it won't be an easy task trying to track them all down…" said Superman. "We don't even know who all the ones we have to find are!"

Reimu turned to look at the league members and said to them, "Thank you very much for gathering my friends together in this place! I was worried about not being able to find them, assuming that they did get brought to the outside world too."

"It's our job to help those in need!" Superman said to her. "We will see to it that we find all your friends!"

"In the very least, I have to return to Gensokyo first," said Reimu. "The Great Hakurei Barrier won't remain long without me, so I have to go back before it disappears."

"Actually, going back there is going to be a lot harder than you think…" Eirin said to her. "We're not in our own universe, and here, Gensokyo doesn't exist."

Surprised by what she heard, Reimu asked, "What?! What do you mean?!"

"This is a whole new different universe, one where costumed superheroes exist," Eirin explained to her. "Like I said earlier, Gensokyo does not exist in this place. We've went to the location in Japan where the outside world version of your shrine is located, but there is no shrine there.

"How can this be possible?!" said Reimu, still having a hard time believing what she heard. "We're in an entirely different universe and not just the outside world?! I can't believe this!"

"It's hard to believe, but it's true…" said Eirin. "As of now, there is no known way to return to our own world without knowing how to find it. They say there exists millions of universes out there, so we cannot find it in a short amount of time without anything to pinpoint it directly."

"That's the truth," Martian Manhunter told Reimu. "We apologize for not being able to send you back home right away, but we will try our best to do so."

"Right, so rest assure that you will all be sent back home!" Superman told the shrine maiden.

"Then I hope you really can do your best to get us all back," Reimu said to him. "I worry that Gensokyo will be exposed to the outside world if I don't get back there and hold up the barrier soon…"

"Why do you fear that your homeland will be discovered by outsiders?" Wonder Woman asked her.

"In our world, most people do not believe in the existence of supernatural beings," Reimu explained to the league members. "Fearing that they will bring harm to such beings, Gensokyo was created to house them and protect them from people who may persecute them. Gensokyo has been protected by a barrier that makes it invisible from the outside for a long time, so it's sudden appearance on the map if the barrier disappears will likely make people curious and thus come to investigate. This will be dangerous for both the beings in Gensokyo and the humans of the outside world. The former may get persecuted for being dangerous and even being… different… while the latter may get attacked by the more malicious demons."

"So it's a barrier that protects the people of the outside from the malicious demons and also the demons in there from being persecuted, right?" asked Superman. "I can now see why it is important for someone to be back there to hold up that barrier."

"My clan has been in charge of the barrier since the creation of Gensokyo," Reimu continued explaining. "Without one of our clan members or the shrine itself present there, the barrier will weaken and eventually disappear. I'm also the only member left in my clan, which makes my presence there very important and irreplaceable."

"You're the last of your clan? What happened?" asked Wonder Woman, sounding concerned.

"People die when they grow old, that's all," Reimu told her.

"But for you to be this young and not have your parents… They must've died when you were very young…" said Wonder Woman, sounding sad.

"I've gotten over it already," said Reimu, not showing an inch of sadness in what she said. "Besides, it's not like I live alone in my shrine. I have a flying turtle that used to assist me in flying before I learned how to fly by myself and a robot maid. Plus, my friends hang out at the shrine often."

"Wait a minute… A robot maid?" asked Cyborg, sounding surprised.

"Yeah, she was given to me as a prize by someone from the outside world when she came to host a tournament in Gensokyo," replied Reimu.

* * *

Coast City, home city of the Justice League member Hal Jordan, who was known to the folks over there as Green Lantern, was flying around the sky of the city with a fellow Lantern corps member, Kyle Rayner.

"New York City is your turf, so why are you over here?" Hal asked Kyle. "You should be there looking for more of those… those… people from another universe…"

"There are some heroes over there looking for them already, like Sandman, Firestorm, and Creeper," Kyle replied, "so I figured that might as well I come over here to look for you, since you're the only hero in this city."

"I can look for these people myself," Hal told him. "It shouldn't be hard, right? Just look for people who speak Japanese and have superpowers. Abnormal hair colors are good indicators as well."

"You'll have to turn off the ring's translator function if you want to know who is speaking Japanese," Kyle reminded him.

That was when it came to Hal. "Yeah, thanks for the reminder…"

* * *

Being hungry was definitely no fun. Marisa could testify to that, as she hadn't eaten anything since she arrived at the "outside world" since the night of the previous day.

She was all alone in this unfamiliar world, and she couldn't understand any of the signs she saw nor could she understand what everyone was saying. She knew they were speaking English, but unfortunately for her, she lacked knowledge of that language, so she wasn't able to get the necessary information for where she was.

Having spent the night at a bench on a park wasn't very comfortable either. The bench was hard, and it was a cold night as well.

Now hunger struck her, so she was in dire need of something to sink her teeth into. Her growling stomach led her into a convenient store, where she found herself staring at all the edibles there. She lacked the currency of this place, however, so it was obvious that she wouldn't be able to buy anything she saw, not even a piece of candy.

The witch sighed in disappointment, as all she could do was look at the mouth-watering microwaveable foods lined up on the frozen food rack. Seeing that she wouldn't be able to get anything free to eat here, she began to head for the exit. Her stomach growled again, and she wasn't sure if she could handle the empty feeling in her stomach any longer. Turning her head to the side, she saw some junk foods lined up on a food rack.

Looking around to make sure that nobody was looking in her direction, the witch grabbed three bags of snacks and then quickly hid them underneath her hat. She then headed for the exit, hoping to get out before anyone found out what she did.

The moment she passed through the door, an alarm went off, and all eyes immediately turned to the surprised witch. "Hey! Did you steal something?!" the clerk asked her.

Though she didn't understand what the clerk was saying to her, she figured that the alarm must've noted him of what she did and that he was telling her to return the stolen goods. Much like how she refused to return "borrowed" books so easily, she wasn't ready to return something that could fill her stomach so easily as well, so the witch quickly took off into the air without bothering to get onto her broom first.

The clerk ran out of the store and shouted at her, "Hey! Thief! Get back here! I know you've stolen something! Get back here!"

"Sorry… I couldn't help it…" Marisa silently said to herself with a look of guilt.

"Hey you! I saw what you did!" someone called out to her. Marisa turned around in surprise, but she was even more surprised when she saw two men dressed in green and black flying after her with green auras around themselves.

"Stop right there!" Hal, the person who called out to her, loudly said. "Stealing things from a convenient store while dressed like that? I always knew witches aren't good people!"

"Look, I'm hungry, okay? I can't help it! I'll repay that store when I get chance to! Just let me have something to eat, or else I'm going to die from starvation!" Marisa shouted at him, despite not knowing what he said just now.

"She's speaking Japanese!" Kyle said in surprise. "She's flying… Her hair is blond, but she looks Japanese… Hal, I think she might be the person we're looking for!"

"Your thought is as good as mine!" Hal said before activating his ring's translator function to continue speaking to Marisa. "Stop at once and return what you've stolen! Don't make me force you!"

"Just try and stop me if you can-ze!" Marisa said to him before getting onto her broom, and then she pressed forward at a faster speed.

"You want to play tag? I'll gladly comply!" Hal said before speeding up. He thrust his hand forward to shoot a green hand out of his ring. The ring caught Marisa's broom from behind and caused the witch to fly forward, not to mention making her hat fly off her head and the snacks in there flying out.

Marisa caught her hat, put it back on, and then said to Hal in anger, "You want a piece of me?! Take this!" She took out and pointed her hakkero at him and fire star-shaped projectiles, which he blocked by creating a green shield.

"It's true that I'm stopping you from stealing, but that doesn't mean I want to hurt you nor am I your enemy!" Hal said to her while blocking the projectiles. "I know…" Before he could finish speaking, Marisa fired a beam that destroyed the shield and blew him back a few centimeters. "Whoa!"

Marisa quickly flew over to her broom, which was thrown onto the sidewalk by Hal, to pick it up and then flew away, not caring about the snacks. The two Green Lanterns continued giving chase. Realizing that they were still going after her, Marisa loudly said to them, "I dropped those foods already! Why are you still after me?!"

"Listen to me!" Hal told her. "I know where your friends are! I can take you to them!"

"You mean take me to the same place you imprisoned them?" Marisa asked. "You're with the ones who invaded our homeland, right? You must've captured and imprisoned my friends! I won't let you get me as well!"

"What are you talking about?!" Hal asked.

"She must be talking about the Cybroxes!" Kyle said to him. "She's thinking she's in the Cybroxes' home planet!"

After hearing what Kyle said, Hal said to Marisa, "You got it wrong! We're not your enemies! Your friends are safe and sound with us!"

"I won't fall for your lies!" Marisa said as she turned around to fire a spray of star-shaped projectiles from her hand. Hal and Kyle flew out of their way, and then the former fired a green beam at her that she dodged.

"You're not supposed to hurt her if you want to prove to her you're not her enemy!" Kyle reminded him when he saw this.

"I was just trying to contain her so I can explain things to her more easily!" Hal told him.

Marisa fired more star-shaped projectiles at them both, but Hal blocked them with a shield. While doing so, he used his other hand to create and send forth a green hand to try to grab her, but she quickly moved out of its way.

She then pointed her hakkero, which had a spell card in front of it, at them. "Eat this! Love Sign: Master Spark!" The hakkero took a few seconds to charge up, and then a massive beam that constantly changed colors was fired at them.

The two Green Lanterns were shocked at the sight of it, and then they quickly moved to the sides before they got hit by it. Luckily, the attack was used in the air, so no visible damage was done. "Whoa! What a laser beam!" Kyle commented with excitement. "I should try pulling off something like that some time!"

While Hal and Kyle were still in awe from seeing the Master Spark, Marisa charged at the former and swung her broom at her, but he turned his attention to her in the nick of time and dodged it. He then created a baseball bat to block another broom swing from her. While locking weapons with each other, Marisa said to him, "Release my friends at once!"

"Your friends are all right! I'm on your side!" Hal told her.

"Do you have proof? You may be lying to get me captured!" said the witch, not believing what he told her.

"If you just follow me, I can prove to you!" Hal told her.

"I'd rather not take the risk!" Marisa said as she pointed her hakkero at him and fired a star-shaped projectile at point blank that blasted him backwards. Suddenly, she found herself encased inside a green sphere-shaped barrier, and when she turned around, she saw that it was Kyle who put her inside it using his ring.

"Listen to us! We're not here to hurt you!" Kyle told her. "We're definitely on your side!"

"You're not very convincing if you're doing something like this to me!" said Marisa, still unconvinced.

"Fine! How about I drop my weapon to prove to you that I'm not your enemy?" said Kyle, starting to get fed up by her unbelieving attitude.

Marisa thought for a few seconds and then said, "You're not trying to do anything funny, are you?"

"I'm serious!" Kyle said. "And I'll prove it to you now!" He then he carried Marisa to the top of a nearby building, where there wouldn't be anyone seeing him revealing his true identity when he took off his ring, which was what he did after releasing her from the barrier. After putting the ring onto the surface of the rooftop, Kyle stood up and said to her, "See? I've put away my weapon. Do you believe me now?"

However, due to the removal of the ring, Marisa no longer heard him speaking Japanese, but his own language.

"I'm serious," Kyle told her. "We're really not your enemies. Your friends are currently with us, and they are definitely NOT imprisoned and mistreated."

Marisa approached him while looking at the ring, and suddenly, she snatched the ring and then flew away in the opposite direction at a fast speed.

"HEY!" yelled Kyle, reaching out his hand at her.

"Sorry, but it'll take a lot more than that to convince me-ze!" the witch said with an expression of gloat that was due to successfully tricking him. "I'll also be taking your ring!"

Seeing this, Hal became angry and then gave chase. "That does it! No more Mister Nice Guy!"

While riding her broom, Marisa put the ring onto her ring finger and inspected it. "Just put it on and you'll be able to shoot beams out of it? Let's try it out, then!" She looked back and pointed her hand at Hal, and then a green beam was fired at him, but he dodged it with ease.

"You want to test my willpower? I'll show you!" Hal said before firing green beams at her, but she managed to dodge them by flying into the air. Marisa then fired several green beams at him that he blocked using a shield. After that, Hal flew at her and thrust his fist forward to make the ring create a green fist that tried to punch her, but she moved out of its way.

"You can do something like that too?" Marisa asked herself. When Hal created a hammer with a long, flexible handle to hit her with from above, Marisa raised her hand over her head out of desperation, and just like that, a dome-shaped shield appeared over her and protected her from it. The witch was surprised at what happened and believed that it must be the ring that did that, but she was still unsure how it worked.

When Hal tried to attack her with a green fist again, she quickly brought her hand in front of herself and caused a green shield to appear to block it. Hal continued to try to hit her from various sides with the fist, but each of them was blocked by the shield that was created by the ring whenever Marisa put her hand in between herself and the hammer. The witch started to understand how the ring worked, and to test her theory, she pointed her hand at Hal and then fired green star-shaped projectiles that he dodged.

Looking at the ring, Marisa said with an excited look, "Wow! So this ring can create whatever I want just by thinking! How awesome is this-ze!"

"The Green Lantern power ring is not fit for a thief like you! Give it back to Kyle at once!" Hal angrily said to her.

"I'll return it when I die-ze!" Marisa said to him, and then she fired more star-shaped projectiles at him.

Acting quick, Hal created a vertically-positioned trampoline that bounced the projectiles back to her. She dodged them, flew behind him, and fired a beam at him, but he quickly dodged it before firing green beams at her.

Kyle watched the two fighting each other from the building he was on, and he said in his head, "This is bad… The misunderstanding is going to get worse! I'm not a member of the Justice League, so I can't contact the members there! What do I do?" Suddenly, he remembered something. "Wait a minute, the last time I recharged my ring is… So that means…"

Marisa continued to dodge Hal's attacks, but then she noticed the light coming from of the ring flickering. "Hey, what's happening to it?" Then she saw Hal throwing a green fist at her, so she quickly tried to protect herself with a shield. However, the shield disappeared just before the fist hit it, so she ended up getting punched back through the air. "YAA!"

Hal sped past Marisa and created a vertically-aligned cushion for her to fly into, and then he changed it into a sphere and encased her inside it. Marisa looked back at him, pounded against the inside of the sphere, and angrily shouted, "Let me out at once!"

Hal then created a claw that went through the sphere and removed Kyle's ring from her finger. After that, he flew over to Kyle and returned it to him. "Forgot to charge it, huh?" Hal asked him.

"Yeah, and I guess it can be useful at times…" Kyle said as he put his ring back on.

"Gotta go back to the Watchtower to convince her," Hal said. "You can go to my house and recharge your ring using my battery. There's a spare key hidden underneath the doormat."

"Okay," Kyle said with a nod.

Hal then contacted the Watchtower using a communicator located close to his ear, and a few seconds later, he and Marisa were teleported away. Kyle then turned around to begin making his way to the bottom of the building, and then he suddenly bumped into something and fell back. When he looked at what he bumped into, he didn't see anything at all. When he looked around after standing up and really saw nothing, he decided to ignore it and then walked away, though he was still confused about what happened just now.

Koishi got up while dusting herself, and then she watched him go through the door that led to a staircase that would take him to the lower floor. Had she allowed herself to be seen by him or if he was a child, Kyle would've been able to see who he bumped into…

* * *

TO BE CONTINUED


	8. Little Big Giant

Sorry for the wait… Wanted this chapter to be a long one, and combined with procrastination, it took a while to get it out…

Anyway, please enjoy!

**Note: This chapter will contain a BGM, and for those of you who want to search on Youtube for it, please be warned that you may come across NSFW pictures. You have been warned, so please be careful.**

**Chapter 8  
Little Big Giant**

* * *

A man with short black hair dressed in detective's clothing entered a large money vault of a bank, where there were several policemen doing investigation inside the former. Clearly, a robbery had happened, as evident of some of the money racks being devoid of dollar bills.

"Detective John Jones!" a policeman said when he saw that man. "We've been waiting for you!"

"What's the situation here?" the detective asked.

"A strange one, you can say…" the policeman replied. "Apparently, the vault door hasn't been tampered with in any way. The security camera outside didn't even capture anyone sneaking into the vault! It's like the thieves broke into the vault from the inside!"

"Surely there are no other entrances other than the vault door, so whoever broke in here must've dug a tunnel or created a new entrance," John said.

"That's what we thought, but we searched everywhere and even checked the floors, but there are no signs of passages created… We checked the air vents as well, but their coverings are still screwed on tightly. The culprit couldn't have screwed it back on when they went back out through it," the policeman told him. "When we got the police dogs to sniff out where the culprits went, they kept on sniffing the wall at the back!" Then he pointed to the police dogs, which were doing what he said they were doing, while some other policemen inspected the wall.

John walked over to the wall, and then the policemen and the police dogs moved away for him to inspect it. The detective looked at the wall from top to bottom and made sure that he didn't miss any details on it. He also touched it to see if he could feel any peculiar, but no matter how he inspected it, he couldn't find anything peculiar about it. It looked like an ordinary wall that had never been tampered with in whatsoever way.

"Are there no security cameras in here?" he asked.

"No, sir," one of the policemen standing next to him replied. "The people here were so confident about the security of this vault that they didn't find it necessary for security cameras to be installed in here…"

"It wouldn't hurt them to install one in here, would they…?" said John.

"We will remind them, sir!" said the policeman. "By the way, have you found anything peculiar about this wall? The police dogs are insisting that there is something peculiar about it. The culprit must've used this wall as an entrance and exit to this room."

"Yet I have found nothing peculiar about it," John replied. "Don't worry; I'll definitely get to the bottom of this. We should go and check the other side of this wall first."

As soon as he said that, the detective and some policemen went outside the bank and walked all the way to the place that was the other side of the wall the police dogs were sniffing. What they saw there was the same as from the inside: nothing peculiar.

Suddenly, something struck him…

* * *

_FLASHBACK_

After Yoshika finished eating her meal and said that she enjoyed it, Youmu, who was sitting at the same table as her, told her that she shouldn't have eaten the dishes as well.

"She's got quite an appetite, doesn't she?" Martian Manhunter, who was also sitting at the same table, asked. "She ate six people's servings! And don't worry about the dish; we can easily get new ones."

"I'm very sorry about her eating manners…" Youmu said to him as she stood up and bowed to him as an act of apology. "I'm sure that if her master is here, she wouldn't have behaved like this… Her master is really the only person she listens to."

"Then we'll have to find her master as soon as possible, then," said Martian Manhunter. "What kind of a person is she?"

Youmu sat back down and replied, "Her master is a wicked hermit. They are hermits who have not been acknowledged by Heaven. I heard that it was because of her selfish nature that she never got acknowledged as one." Then she looked at Yoshika. "I also heard that it was because of reanimating a corpse that she was never acknowledged as one."

"I can see why, since creating undeads is considered a wrongful thing to do, not to mention disrespecting life," said Martian Manhunter. "Is she an evil person?"

"I wouldn't say she is evil…" Youmu replied. "She does whatever she wants and doesn't care about the consequences, whether or not people will get hurt because of her actions, but she certainly isn't the kind of person who would cause havoc and large-scaled incidents. However, I heard she's been caught breaking into people's houses and stealing things…"

"Then she is someone you have to watch out for," said Martian Manhunter. "Chances are likely that she's doing stealing here as well. Is there anything else we need to know about her if we want to find her?"

"She wears a teal dress and has blue hair," Youmu replied. "She's usually carrying around a clear white cloth as well. She can use her hair stick to create holes on walls. Apparently, the harder the wall is, the easier it is for her to create holes on it. The hole created will automatically return to normal after a while."

"She can create holes on walls with ease?" Martian Manhunter asked, and Youmu nodded. "Such ability will allow her to break into places and steal things with ease!"

"I don't really think she'll do any stealing here," Youmu told him. "After all, this is a place unfamiliar to her, so she probably wouldn't do anything reckless."

_END OF FLASHBACK_

* * *

After recalling what he heard at the Watchtower the same day, John, Martian Maunhunter's public identity and disguise, said to himself, "Could it be… her?"

* * *

Running at a ridiculously high speed at a place where there were several people and even cars meant asking for accidents to happen, but such wasn't the case for the yellow blur that was doing just that. Despite the speed it was moving at, so fast that one couldn't make out its details, it managed to avoid running into everything on the street. Whenever a car was in the way, it would simply move aside and continue on its way.

Such a sight was a norm for the people of Keystone City, as they were not surprised at all whenever they saw this yellow blur speeding down the street or anywhere in the city. They knew all too well what, or rather, who, that was to be surprised by its appearance.

The yellow blur made its way to a large building that had several people walking in and out of its relatively large entrance. He rushed into the public bathroom located somewhere close to it, and then a few seconds later, a boy with brown hair wearing a red shirt and a pair of blue jeans stepped out and looked at his watch. "Five minutes early!" he said. "It can't be helped if I'm a speedster, right?"

"Yeah, you should learn to arrive even earlier! I'm dying from boredom due to waiting for you and the others!" said a nearby voice.

The boy turned to the side and saw a younger boy with dark brown hair dressed in a similar-looking attire. "Bart! You're here already?!" said the first boy in surprise.

"Of course! I'm faster than you after all!" the boy named Bart said to him. "Plus, there's a reason I'm called Impulse, right?"

"Yeah, yeah… You rush headfirst into pretty much everything the first chance you get…" grumbled the other boy, Wally West. "How long have you been here?"

"Ten minutes ago," Bart replied. "So… we just have to wait for the others now?"

"Yeah," Wally said while looking at his watch. "I told them we'll meet at one in the afternoon, and since they're not like us, who always get to places early…"

"Who says we don't get to places early?" said a girl's voice all of a sudden. Bart and Wally turned to the side and saw nine people standing there: Artemis Crock, Megan Morse, Garfield Logan, Connor Kent, Karen Beecher, Raquel Ervin, Malcolm Duncan, Cassie Sandsmark, and Zatanna.

"Didn't expect us to be here early, eh?" Artemis, the one who spoke earlier, said to the two boys.

"We knew you would arrive here earlier than the appointed time, so we all left early," Megan explained.

"We'd be torturing you if we let the both of you wait too long," said Connor.

"I can wait a bit, though I can't say the same for this guy," said Wally while pointing at Bart with his thumb and without looking at him. "Anyway, nice to know that all of you are here! Well, not all… Some of the ones I've contacted have business to attend to, so they can't come. Anyway, now that you're here, let's go into the brand new mall of Keystone City!" He turned to the building and pointed his arm at it.

The group headed over to the building, and Zatanna looked up at it while commenting, "Wow! It sure is massive for a department store!"

"I've been here twice, and trust me: it's so big that I don't think I've seen every single corner of it yet!" claimed Wally. "This place is so awesome that you'll lose track of time once you're in there! Better hold onto your wallets, because you're totally going to use them often! For girls, mostly…"

They went into the department store, and everyone except Bart, Wally, and Connor watched in awe at the design of the interior. There was a large fountain in the center of the place, and around it were bushes trimmed to resemble various kinds of animals. The building had several floors, and one could see all the way to top as they moved towards the center. Because the ceiling was made of see-through tiles, the sun shined down from it and made it seem like one was outside when they were right underneath it. Needless to say, there were several stores and stands all over the place. The whole place resembled the inside of a palace.

"Wow! I don't think I'll be able to complete my shopping in a single day!" Raquel commented in excitement. "This place looks awesome!"

"I think dad is going to throw a fit if I go back with an empty wallet…" said Zatanna. "Better make sure that I have self-control…"

"We're all old enough to make our own decisions, so why do you worry about that?" Cassie asked her. "Just do whatever you want until your heart's content! That's how I do things!"

As the girls moved on ahead and talked to each other happily about where they wanted to go first and what they wanted to buy, the guys followed them a few steps behind. "Honestly saying, I'm not a fan of going out with girls to department stores…" said Connor. "It's not that I dislike shopping, but it's because they are interested in things… I'm not interested in, and they can spend, like, hours in one store and buy nothing…"

"I think it's the same for all guys," Wally said to him.

"You'll have to get used to this," Malcolm told Connor. "Girls are attracted to clothes, jewelries, and certain kinds of accessories. They'll always spend more time on those items than any others."

"I know…" Connor grumbled.

"Why don't we just let them do the shopping themselves, while we head over to the arcade?" suggested Wally. "They have a large one at the top floor, and that place is a blast!"

"Great idea!" said Garfield the green-skinned boy, excited. "I want to go there!"

"I can hear you guys," said Megan, turning around partially. "Sorry if we bore you with our shopping, okay? You can go on ahead and do whatever makes you happy, so you don't have to follow us all over the place."

Worried that he made her unhappy, Connor desperately said to her, "No, I didn't mean to…"

"I'm not angry, Connor," Megan said to him as she completely turned around. "It's perfectly normal for guys to not be as interested in shopping as girls. You just go ahead and do whatever you find the most enjoyable here. There's nothing wrong with this!"

"Yeah, there's nothing wrong with boys wanting to have some fun without girls!" Bart said to Connor while elbowing him lightly. "Let's hit the arcade now!"

"All right, let's meet again at this spot!" Wally said to the girls. "You girls go ahead and enjoy your shopping!"

With that, the guys and the girls went separate ways.

While the guys were searching for the elevator, Connor said, "Intruders appeared at our headquarters last night."

Wally and Malcolm were surprised to hear this. "What happened?!" Malcolm asked.

"It's no big deal! Red Tornado subdued them before we got there!" Bart told him. "Of course, I wished I had a part in it…"

"Who intruded our headquarters?" Wally asked.

"Don't know who they are," Connor replied. "There were three of them, and all of them were girls. They didn't seem to be dangerous, though. Their clothes are plain-looking, and they only have with them musical instruments."

"Musical instruments? Are they musicians who got lost or something?" Malcolm asked.

"I don't know," Connor said. "Red Tornado later received a message from the Watchtower regarding the appearance of boom tubes in various places, and since those three girls arrived at our headquarters using one, he took them there right away."

"They arrived at our headquarters using a boom tube?!" Wally asked in surprise.

"Not sure what happened after that…" Connor continued. "Wanted to ask Red Tornado about those three girls, but haven't seen him today yet…"

"Let's hope everything is all right out there…" Malcolm said. "Sounds like an invasion is happening…"

"Relax! If everyone who came out of those boom tubes are anything like those three who showed up inside our mountain, then we can deal with them no problem!" said Bart. "What are they going to do with musical instruments? Make music until our ears bleed?"

"That sounds painful and dangerous if you ask me…" said Garfield, shuddering at the thought of bleeding painfully in the ears.

* * *

An hour had passed since the guys and the girls went their own ways. The girls had a blast doing both shopping and window shopping. With several bags in their hands and walking through one of the floors, they talked to each other about how they were enjoying things and where they should go next.

As they were walking by an alcohol store, they heard a man angrily saying, "No! Alcohols are not for children! You're not allowed to drink it!"

Curious, the girls turned to the store and saw a seller holding up a beer bottle in front of a girl with light brown hair and a pair of horns on her head.

"Give it to me!" the girl said to that man in Japanese while reaching her hand towards the beer.

"Sorry, I don't understand Japanese!" the seller said to her while pulling the beer away. "I'm going to tell your parents that you took a sip of the beer that is for sampling!"

"Underage drinking? Geez, what is the world coming too…?" asked Raquel. "Kids nowadays sure are behaving more and more like adults… in a bad way…"

"Look, I'm not in a good mood today!" the horned girl said the seller. "Either you give me that right away, or I'll snatch it out of your hand myself! On the second thought, I'll do the latter right away!" Then she jumped up and did just that before drinking from it.

"Hey! Give it back!" the seller angrily said as he reached his hands toward the girl, but the latter thrust her free hand at him and caused him to fly back, knocking down all the racks that were in the way.

CRASH CRASH CRASH CRASH CRASH!

"What the?! How did she do that?!" Karen asked in shock.

"A metahuman?!" asked Artemis, equally surprised.

After the horned girl finished that bottle of beer, she flung it aside before looking at a nearby rack. "Not bad! Beers of the outside world sure taste good!" she said. "I haven't had enough yet!" She grabbed another bottle, pulled off the cap using her bare hand with ease, and then chugged it.

Two of the store's sellers came over to her and told to stop while grabbing her arms, but she spun in a circle and caused them to fly away, one of them in the direction of those girls, but Cassie caught him and then put him down.

Not liking what she saw, Cassie walked toward the girl after that while saying to her, "Hey you! Don't you think you have enough?! You look only about ten years old, and you're drinking alcohol! Have your parents never taught you not to drink until you're at least eighteen?! And just because you have super strength doesn't mean you can abuse it and hurt people who are telling you the correct things!"

The horned girl lowered the bottle and looked at her with a grumpy face. "Don't you grownups ever stop blabbering at me about drinking alcohol? Assuming that's what you're saying to me…" she said in an annoyed voice. "What do you people know about me? This is why I find people of the outside world annoying! They don't know I'm actually an oni and think I'm just a little kid, so they lecture me for drinking alcohol! Why don't you people learn your folklore and understand that drinking is what oni like to do?!"

"Sorry, I don't speak or understand Japanese! You'll have to speak English or a language I understand, like Greek!" Cassie said to her while bending towards her with her hands on her hips.

Not liking the attitude Cassie was showing her and also her face being close to her, the horned girl said, "You want to pick a fight with me or what?" Then she burped right into her face.

"Eeeeew!" Cassie cried in disgust as she pulled back from her. "That does it! I ought to teach you a lesson!"

"Cassie! Don't!" Megan said to her, trying to stop her from hurting that girl.

Cassie tried to slap the girl in the face, but the latter caught her hand and stopped it cold, much to her surprise. The latter then twisted her hand, making her cry in pain, before shoving her forward. She continued drinking from the same bottle afterwards.

"How dare you?!" Cassie angrily said while rubbing her hand. "THAT DOES IT!" Enraged, she threw a punch at the girl's face without a hesitation, but to her surprise, she caught and stopped her fist with ease.

"Want to pick a fight with me for real, eh?" the horned girl asked her. "I can tell you're strong when I grabbed your hand twice, so maybe you can entertain me a bit?" She lifted her over her head by the fist, slammed her onto the floor behind herself, and then spun in a circle before throwing her away.

Such a sight surprised Cassie's friends and the onlookers. "I can't believe it! She's actually as strong as Cassie?!" Zatanna said in disbelief.

Cassie got back up and glared at the girl while growling in anger. "YOU'RE ASKING FOR IT!" she yelled at the top of her voice.

The horned girl beckoned for her to come over while saying, "Looks like you're all heated up for a good fight!"

Cassie let out a cry as she ran towards the horned girl to throw another punch at her, but the latter easily dodged it before throwing her own. The former managed to avoid it as well before throwing another one that struck her in the face. The horned girl moved back from her while rubbing the part that got hit, and then she said with a grin, "Nice going! You're getting better!"

"I don't understand you, and I don't intend to do so anymore!" Cassie angrily said to her.

Both sides ran at each other and traded punches and kicks. Cassie's friends were amazed at how good the horned girl was at fighting. Despite her young appearance, she displayed very good fighting skills that were considered very high-leveled. The fact that she managed to block Cassie's attacks was unbelievable as well, considering that the latter was Wonder Woman's sidekick and had her strength given to her by the Greek god Zeus.

"Who is that girl?!" Artemis asked. "How is she able to put up a fight against Cassie?! I know there are people stronger than her, but that girl looks a lot younger than her!"

After trading blows with each other for a while, the horned girl jumped back from Cassie and then breathed a stream of fire from her mouth at her, but the latter managed to avoid it by jumping aside, despite getting surprised by it.

"She can breathe fire as well?!" Zatanna asked in surprise.

Cassie jumped at the horned girl and swung down her hands like a hammer at her, but the latter crossed her arms over her head and managed to block the blow, though the force of the impact caused her feet to sink slightly into the floor. Not giving her the chance to counterattack, Cassie performed a back flip and kicked her in the chin, and the former's feet wasn't even on the floor when she did that. Such a move caught the horned girl by surprise and sent her into the air. Cassie then jumped, or rather, flew at her and punched her over the railing, coming to a stop when she hit the sign of a store on the other side.

CRAAAAAAAAASH!

Cassie's friends ran up to her, who was floating in the air, and Megan said to her, "Cassie! You didn't have to go that rough on her!"

"If she is able to put up a fight against me, then I'm sure she can withstand a punch like that!" Cassie insisted.

The horned girl got up on her knees and rubbed her back while looking at Cassie. "So… you can fly too?" she asked. "Looks like the outside world isn't that different from Gensokyo after all! I think I'm going to enjoy this!" Then she flew at Cassie, much to her surprise and her friends.

"She can fly as well?!" asked Raquel in surprise.

Seeing the horned girl flying at her, Cassie flew at her as well, and their fists met with each other with a powerful force that created a shockwave that caused all the light objects around them to fly back into the air. The two then traded punches and kicks in midair violently nonstop.

* * *

"Awwww… Man! That's the last time I'm losing to you in Super Path Battler IV!" Malcolm said after losing to Bart on an arcade game.

"Just because I come from an era where video games are far more advanced than the ones now means I don't have skills in them!" Bart said to him.

"More like you used your sense of speed to watch my character's movements in slow motion!" Malcolm said to him. "That's cheating!"

"You just got to adapt to whatever challenge is thrown at you! It's not impossible to beat a speedster, you know!" Bart told him.

People around them started leaving the arcade, and they became curious. "What's happening?" asked Malcolm.

Wally, Conner, and Garfield came up to them, and when Malcolm asked them what was happening, Wally replied, "Looks like something is happening out there."

They followed everyone out of the arcade and all the way to the railing. When they looked down, they could see two figures fighting each other in midair. "What's happening down there?" asked Garfield. "I can't see clearly who they are."

Conner narrowed his eyes for a few seconds and then said, "It's Cassie! She's fighting what appears to be a girl with a pair of horns on her head!"

"A girl with a pair of horns?" Malcolm curiously said.

"She's capable of flying, and she's putting up a good fight against Cassie!" continued Connor. "She's definitely a metahuman!"

"So that's what the ruckus is all about!" said Bart. "Looks interesting! Wanna go down there and get a closer look?"

"We better," suggested Wally. "I have a feeling that we may be needed down there…"

* * *

Grabbing her by the neck, Suika pushed Cassie backwards, through the railing, and pinned her onto the floor. The oni pulled one arm into the air and readied to bring down her fist onto Cassie's face, but the latter managed to catch her fist. She removed Suika's arm from her neck and then flung her aside. Before the oni could get back up properly, Cassie approached her at a fast speed and kicked her across the place in the abdomen. The oni crashed through the window of a boutique and knocked down the mannequins in there.

Instead of getting back up with an angry face, however, Suika was grinning. She was actually enjoying this fight. "I'm just getting started!" she said while picking up one of the mannequins, and then she hurled it like a spear at Cassie, who knocked it away with her hand with ease.

Suika ran out of the boutique and jumped in her direction with her arms raised into the air. Cassie jumped back to avoid Suika when she brought down her hands like a hammer, and when the latter's hands hit the floor, a ball of fire shot out and flew in Cassie's direction, but she dodged it.

"You sure are full of surprises!" she commented.

Cassie's friends were still watching from the side, and at the same time, they were making sure that the onlookers wouldn't get involved in those two girls' fight. Despite the chaos those two were causing, not everyone ran for safety. Some wanted to stay behind to see what would be the outcome of this fight.

"At this rate, those two are going to tear down this whole place!" Artemis desperately said. "We have to stop them!"

"I'm not sure if I want to get in between them, seeing how strong they both are…" said Karen.

Suddenly, Bart and Wally dashed into scene at a fast speed, and the latter asked the girls, "What's happening? Who's the girl Cassie is fighting?"

"Wally! You're here!" Megan said to him. "Where are Connor and the others?"

"They're on their way here," Wally told her. "So what's the story here?"

They turned to Cassie and Suika, and Megan told him, "That girl with horns was caught underage drinking, and she attacked those who tried to stop her from doing so."

"Underage drinking and beating up people who won't let her drink? Wow! This takes alcoholism and tantrum throwing to a whole new level!" Bart commented.

"And she's actually able to go toe to toe with Cassie?!" asked Wally. "No wonder nobody tried to stop them!"

"If nobody's going to stop them, I'll do it!" said Bart. "Gotta get into my costume first, though…"

Cassie punched Suika across the face hard, followed by an uppercut to the chin. Suika spun back through the air and landed on both feet perfectly, and then she kicked off against it to launch herself forward and ram Cassie hard in the abdomen with her head. Cassie flipped upside-down before she hit the floor and then performed a somersault to get back on her feet, however, so she never actually hit the floor.

Suika then punched the floor to create cracks on it, and then she picked up a piece of it to throw at Cassie, who got out of the way and went for a nearby pot of plant to pick up and throw at the oni, who shattered it with a single punch.

Suika then felt someone tapping her shoulder, but when she turned around to see who it was, there was nobody. She suddenly felt someone pushing her down by her left horn, and when she looked in that direction, there was nobody again.

Suddenly, someone kicked her in the feet and caused her to fall forward, and then Bart got on top of her and pinned her down by the horns. "I got her!" he shouted. "See? That was…" Before he could finish speaking, Suika quickly got back up and then shook her head violently until he was thrown away. "Whoa!"

Suika looked at Bart, called Impulse when in his crime-fighting alter ego, land, and she said, "You want a piece of me too? I can take on several people at once!" Suddenly, she was caught from behind by Connor. "Hey!"

"This is as far as you go!" Connor said to her. He didn't expect her to be very strong, however, so when Suika tried to get him off by shaking her body, he was thrown away. He quickly got back up and turned to the oni. "You're quite a powerhouse for someone your size! Fine by me! It'll be more fun!"

Connor, also known as Superboy, ran at Suika, and both sides met their fists against each other with a powerful force. When Suika tried to punch his abdomen after that, Superboy surprised her by catching that fist, and then he lifted her over his shoulder and slammed her onto the floor at the back. Superboy then swung her around several times before letting go of her hand and hurling her across the air until she hit the side of the floor above.

CRASH!

Suika got off from the wall and said with a grin, "That's the way I like it!" She pulled back her fist and flew at Superboy. When she was closing in on him, Cassie charged at her from the side and knocked her away. When Suika came to a stop from tumbling against the floor and looked up, she saw Cassie running at her. The latter brought down her fist at her, but Suika jumped into the air and over her. Cassie then spun around and threw a punch at her, but Suika managed to block it with her arm.

When Superboy approached the oni from behind, Suika found herself having to block his attacks and Cassie's. While fighting two people wasn't a problem for Suika, these two people were really strong and skilled, so she found herself in a bit of a pinch. Eventually, she escaped getting assaulted by them by turning into mist, much to their surprise.

Suika moved away from them and then changed only her head back to normal. Looking at those two, she taunted, "Ha! Try to hit me while I'm like this if you can! I bet you can't!" Impulse then showed up and ran around her in circles, his speed gradually increasing. "Hey! What are you doing?!"

As his speed increased, a cyclone started to be formed, and then Suika gradually felt her body of mist being pulled into it. "Whoa! Smart thinking! But not fair! Stop it!" she cried. The oni screamed as the cyclone pulled her in completely, so she found herself spinning in circles really fast.

When Impulse finally stopped running, Suika turned back to normal and walked around in an awkward manner, as she was feeling dizzy from the intense spinning. She unknowingly and uncontrollably walked in Superboy's direction, and he used this opportunity to punch her hard in the abdomen and sent her flying towards a wall that consisted of mostly glass panels. The glass panels shattered when the oni flew into them, and she fell out of the department store and towards the pavement before.

THUD!

Superboy panted heavily, thinking he had won the fight. His friends ran up to him, and Wally said to him, "Dude! This is the third floor, and each of the floors is pretty high! Falling from a height like this is no laughing matter!"

"If she can withstand my punches, and also Cassie's, then I think falling wouldn't hurt her much," Superboy told him. "Also, she can fly, so I'm expecting her to fly back up here any second now."

They waited, but several seconds passed without anything happening. "I think you really got her…" Malcolm said.

They began to approach the broken glass panels to look down below, but suddenly, a giant face rose from behind them, surprising them. "Whoa! What the?!" said Garfield.

**BGM: Onigashima in the Fairyland ~ Missing Power (Touhou Strange Battle Music Gaiden)**

Suika, now a giant that reached the same floor as them, said in a loud voice, "Not bad! You people are doing a great job giving me a challenge, and I LOVE it! Time for round two! Let's see if you can take on me when I'm this size!" After she was done speaking, the giant oni swung her hand at the glass panels, shattering them all, so the group quickly moved back to avoid getting injured by the flying glass shards.

"She became a giant?! Are you kidding me?!" Artemis asked in shock.

Not giving a single thought about the destruction she was causing, Suika moved into the department store, tearing through the floors of the second and third floors. She brought down her hand onto the group, damaging the fourth floor in the process, but they quickly got out of the way.

"We can't let her go crazy here and destroy this store! We should lure her away from here first!" Megan suggested.

"Then let's get out of here already!" said Malcolm desperately.

"Cassie and I will take on her, while the rest of you get out of here first!" Superboy said to the others. "We'll lure her out of here after that!"

"Sounds like a good idea to me! I've never fought anything this big before, so I'm going to see how I fare against an opponent like this!" Cassie said while cracking her fist.

Superboy and Cassie then ran at Suika, while the others did as the former said and searched for someplace for them to get out. When Suika reached her hand toward Superboy and Cassie, they jumped over it and ran across her arm. Suika swung her arm outside and caused the both of them to fly into the air. Cassie remained floating in the air, while Superboy fell towards the pavement below and landed on his feet, creating cracks on it as a result.

"Well, this happened sooner than expected…" said Cassie, referring to how they managed to divert Suika's attention from the department store.

Suika reached her hand towards Cassie to grab her, but the latter flew out of the way and then continued to avoid getting caught by the giant oni. While this was happening, Superboy ran towards Suika's right leg and performed a relatively high jump at it to punch the kneecap. The oni grunted in pain as she looked down before swinging up her leg to kick Superboy into the air. Cassie quicky flew over to Superboy and caught him by the arms. When Suika closed in on them, Cassie quickly carried Superboy out of the way and then placed him a bit of a distance away from the oni.

Meanwhile, the others managed to make their way out of the department store. Seeing Superboy and Cassie taking on Suika, Megan said to everyone, "All right! Now that we're out here, we can use our powers with lesser restrictions! Let's take her down together!"

"Um… Our costumes? Some of us can't fight without our costumes and weapons…" Raquel reminded her.

"Problem solved!" Zatanna said, and then she raised her arms into the air. "Semutsoc gnithgif-emirc ruo otni egnahc!" Just like that, everyone's attires were magically changed into the costumes they wear when fighting crime.

"Yeah! Awesome! Time to go wild!" said Garfield, AKA "Beast Boy", excitedly.

"Got any strategies?" asked Karen, AKA "Bumblebee", who was now only a few centimeters tall and hovering in the air using the help of her bee suit's wings.

"You know what they say: the bigger they are, the harder they fall!" replied Impulse. "It's going to hurt a lot for her if she falls over!"

"So let's bind her feet and make her fall over!" suggested Wally, AKA "Kid Flash".

"Leave that to me!" Zatanna said before pointing her hands at Suika's legs and chanting a phrase backwards. "Sgel reh dnuora parw dna raeppa niahc a ekam!"

Just like that, a long chain magically appeared out of thin air around Suika's legs and wrapped itself around them. By the time the oni realized this, she found herself on the verge of falling forward. While trying to balance herself, Cassie, AKA "Wonder Girl", punched her in the face and caused her to fall back. However, with fast reaction, the oni reached her hands over her head and performed a handstand. Standing upside-down, she split her legs apart and broke the chain with ease. She then got back on her feet and looked at the group of young superheroes, who were surprised at what she did. "Ha! Your plan didn't work, it seems!" she said.

"She's good…" commented Kid Flash.

"Here I come!" Suika shouted as she jumped at them in an attempt to stomp them, but they quickly scattered in various directions.

Artemis, AKA "Tigress", turned to the giant oni and used her bow to fire arrows at her, but they bounced off her body harmlessly. Suika laughed as she approached Tigress, who continued to fire arrows, despite them doing nothing. Suddenly, Beast Boy, in the form of an eagle, flew in front of Suika's face and flapped his wings and swung his talons against it. The oni cried in annoyance while moving back a couple of steps and flailing her hands at him to get him away. Beast Boy avoided her hand swings, flew above her head, and transformed into an elephant before dropping himself on top of it, hoping to press her down with his weight. It would've worked if he was heavier than her…

Suika shook her head and caused Beast Boy to fly off, and he quickly changed into an eagle again to avoid hitting the ground. Suika turned to her with a look of anger and was going to reach her hand to him when suddenly Megan, AKA "Miss Martian", punched her in the side of the face with an enlarged fist.

POW!

Suika angrily turned to her, but was immediately shot by yellow beams fired at her by Bumblebee. Suika tried to swat her out of the air, but she moved around at a fast speed to avoid getting caught. Miss Martian threw another punch at her face with an enlarge fist, and then Wonder Girl flew into her forehead and punched her back a few steps. Superboy then leaped at her abdomen and shoulder bashed it hard. Raquel, AKA "Rocket", followed up with a punch powered by kinetic energy, hitting her in the face with a powerful force that caused her to spin in a full circle before falling over on her front.

CRAAAAAAAAAAAAASH!

"Nwod reh dloh tnemevap eht tel!" Zatanna chanted while pointing her arms at the fallen Suika, and then the parts of the pavement around the latter's wrists and ankles came up as strips, went over them, and held her down.

However, this wasn't effective in holding down the oni at all. Suika easily tore her hands from those pavement strips and then pushed herself back, doing the same to the ones holding down her ankles. The superheroes moved back from her in shock, as they thought they had managed to hold her down.

"I'm starting to have enough of you people!" she said in anger. "You think you can beat me through teamwork and such? Don't make me laugh! Oni are the strongest! You can never beat me!"

"She's strong!" commented Malcolm, AKA "the Guardian", in surprise. "How are we going to take her down like this?!"

Suika noticed a truck parked at the side, so she bent down to pick it up and then threw it at Kid Flash, Impulse, and Beast Boy, who were in front of her. They quickly ran back before the truck hit them, and then Suika breathed a stream of fire at the truck. Because the fire came in contact with its oil tank, it exploded.

KABOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOM!

When the truck exploded, several very small pellets flew all over the place, and when some of them fell onto Suika's skin, she screamed in pain and desperately brushed them off, only to feel pain on her hands as well.

One of the pellets hit Superboy's forehead and harmlessly bounced off it. Curious, he picked up the pellet to see what it was that made the giant oni scream in pain. "Bean…?" Then he looked at Suika and saw her looking at the spots on her body that got hit by the beans. Wanting to see if she would react the same way again, he pulled back his hand and then threw with all his might the bean at her arm. This caused her to scream in agony. "She's... weak to beans…?"

Suika glared at Superboy and said, " How dare you throw a roasted bean at me?!" She angrily stomped in his direction, so Superboy quickly picked up another bean that was lying on the pavement and threw it at her. Because of its size, it was very hard for someone her size to see it, and by the time she saw it flying towards her, it was already too late for her to dodge it. The bean hit her nose, and she cried in pain while placing her hands over the latter.

"She's weak to beans!" Superboy shouted to his comrades.

"Weak to beans? Ha! That's probably the most hilarious weakness I've ever seen!" laughed Impulse.

"She's really weak to beans? Let me try, then!" Rocket said before picking up some beans from the ground. Using the help of kinetic energy, she managed to throw them at a speed that rivaled a bullet fired from a gun, and needless to say, it hurt the oni really badly when it hit her shoulder.

Kid Flash ran around the place at a fast speed, picking up all the beans he came across. Once he had a hand full of them, he threw them really fast at Suika while running in circles around her.

"Stop it! Stop it!" Suika shouted while using her arms to defend herself, even though it wasn't helping at all, because her arms were in pain from doing so. She tried to step on the speedster in yellow, but he was moving way too fast to get stepped on.

"Reh kcatta dna rehtegot rehtag snaeb eht lla!" Zatanna chanted as she stretched forth her arms. In doing so, all the beans that were scattered all over the place floated into the air and gathered together. There were so many of them that they became quite a large mass floating in midair when all of them were gathered together, and then they flew towards Suika like a swarm of bees.

The oni screamed in terror before turning to run from the incoming beams. Tigress gave Impulse an arrow that had a rope tied to the back of it and told him to run to the other side and pull it. Understanding her intention, Impulse did just that. They pulled the rope from both sides, and when Suika's leg touched the rope, she started to fall over. The oni flailed her arms at the sides in an attempt to balance herself, but then the beans struck her in the back, making her cry in agony while falling forward on her face for the second time.

CRAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAASH!

The beans didn't stop there, however. They fell onto her and bounced up and down on various parts of her back. To Suika, it was as if she was getting stung by bees over and over nonstop. "STOP IT! STOP IT! ALL RIGHT! I GIVE UP! JUST GET THOSE BEANS AWAY FROM ME! GET THEM AWAY FROM ME! STOP IT!" she screamed in agony with her hands placed over her head. After screaming that, she started to shrink until she was back to her normal size, and then under Zatanna's command, the beans stopped bouncing on top of her and dropped all around her.

**BGM Ends**

By this time, the oni was in tears and sniffing, and the superheroes gathered around her. "Well, looks like she learned her lesson," said Kid Flash.

"Can't believe that there would be someone who's scared of beans…" said Tigress.

Suika slowly lifted her head and glared at the ones standing in front of her with an angry face. "Why you…?! I won't forgive you!" she said. She slowly pushed herself back up and continued glaring at them. Suddenly, the Guardian stepped forward and slammed a handful of beans into her face. "YAAAAAAAAAAAA!" With that, the oni fell back and passed out.

"Um… Was that necessary…?" Bumblebee asked him.

"She was showing signs of aggression just now," the Guardian told her. "I picked up some beans just in case something like this happened, and I was right in doing so. Glad I actually did something… Thought I wasn't going to get any part in this whatsoever…"

The group got closer to the passed out Suika, and then Beast Boy asked, "Okay, so what do we do with her?"

"Let's contact the league and tell them about this," Miss Martian suggested. "They know better what to do with people like her."

* * *

TO BE CONTINUED

Even though this portrayal of the team from Young Justice is from the TV series, this story does not take place in that universe, Earth-16. Since that is the only version of Young Justice I'm familiar with, I used the character portrayals from there, but since I'm not following the storyline there, Kid Flash is still alive and Artemis is a "blond Tigress", like she said she wanted to be at the end of the series.


	9. Reverse Ideology

**SBS Time!  
Lunatic-Over'9000'Lord****: **What do you prefer: Touhou or DC?  
**Game2002: **Touhou, but that doesn't mean I give all the "good things" to them.

**darkcol9: **What kind of an oni is she… to be weak to BEANS?!  
**Game2002: **Oni are weak to beans in (Japanese) mythology.

**Chapter 9  
Reverse Ideology**

* * *

Other than waiting, eating the snacks set before them on the table, and watching TV, there was nothing else to do at all. Iku, Flandre, Yuugi, and Utsuho were told by a woman that her boss would be there to meet them very soon and give them explanations regarding certain things. It had been a while since she told them this, and though there wasn't a clock in the room, Iku estimated that it was almost thirty minutes since they were promised that the boss would come. Flandre and Utsuho were enjoying the cartoon on the TV, while Yuugi and Iku were reclined at the sofa with somewhat bored expressions.

"Geez… How long do they plan to keep us waiting?" Yuugi impatiently grumbled while pouring a beer from a bottle into a glass cup. "Don't they know I'm not the most patient person in the world?"

"What if that woman lied to us?" asked Iku.

"And for what purpose? To let us bore to death here?" asked Yuugi before taking a drink. "She better watch her back if she dares lie to us! Oni don't like lies! At all!"

As soon as she said this, the door leading into the room they were in opened, and a bald man and a brunette, the same woman who told them to wait, came into the room. "I apologize for making you wait," the bald man said to them in perfect Japanese. "I am a busy man after all, so I have business to attend to first before I can come and meet you all."

"About time you showed you up…" Yuugi said to him, and then she turned to Utsuho and Flandre. "Hey, that guy who threw that monster at us is here!"

Hearing this, both the girls quickly turned their heads away from the television to look at the bald man, and Flandre asked, "So he's the bad guy who sent that monster after us and beat us up? How dare he do something like that?!"

The man raised his hand to the level of his chest and said, "I apologize for what happened that time. I'm sure you will understand once I've given you explanations." Then he pointed his hand at a nearby table. "Would you please come over here and have a seat?"

After turning off the TV, the four girls left the sofa and headed over to the table the man pointed to and sat down there with him. "First, I must introduce myself to you," the man said to them. "My name is Lex Luthor, the chairman of this company."

"I thought so," Iku said with a nod.

"While I apologize for the rough treatment that met you people when you first arrived here, I must wonder about how you got here in the first place," Lex said to them. "The place you people were in is off-limits to the public. Therefore, the security was dispatched to deal with you, and the being that came after you was the last resort defense of that place, only sent out when the intruders are too much to deal with."

"Well, that's one heck of a security guard you have there…" Yuugi commented. "Just what on earth is that?"

"Before I answer you that, I must first let you know what kind of place this is," Lex told her. "This place is called LexCorp, a company dedicated to helping the future become a brighter and better place!"

"You help people?" asked Utsuho.

"Indeed," Lex replied with a nod. "We are dedicated to making things that help mankind. The safety of the people is also important to us, so we strive to find ways that will help make the world a better place. The world out there is a dangerous place, and people are afraid of things that are not normal and those with superpowers."

"People with superpowers?" Iku curiously asked.

"I have seen that you people have superpowers," said Lex. "I'm afraid that you shouldn't be showing your powers to the public just like that, as they will be afraid of you and despite you."

"What's wrong with us having superpowers?" asked Flandre.

"Like I said earlier, people are afraid of those not normal," Lex told her. "Normal people are afraid that those with superpowers will become unstoppable and dangerous if they decide to use them in the wrong way. After all, it is normal for those with great powers to become proud of themselves and see themselves as gods."

"Hey, I can easily lift a mountain if I want to, but I never thought of using my strength to bully people and make them afraid!" Yuugi said to him. "I am proud of my strength, however…"

"But can you really convince people to believe that?" Lex asked her. "We live in a world where the population consists of mostly non-powered people, and the opinion of the majority outweighs the ones of the minority."

"That's the outside world for you…" said Iku. "This is why Gensokyo exists for people like us to stay in."

Hearing this, Lex asked her, "Gensokyo? Is that the name of a place?"

Iku nodded. "Yes, it's a place located in Japan where demons and those with supernatural powers live in. Because the outside world, which is where I believe we are currently in, either don't believe in the existence of such beings or are afraid of them, so Gensokyo was created to house them. It is also to keep dangerous demons that prey on humans contained, though there are normal humans living there…"

"I would love to hear more about this Gensokyo!" Lex said to her. "However, I'm sure you want me to tell you more about this place first."

"Yeah! What is that monster?" asked Flandre. "How was it able to piece itself back together after I blew it into pieces?"

"The being you encountered is a genetically-engineered super soldier designed to accomplish tasks no man can accomplish," Lex replied. "You see, I am one of the minority who believe that those with superpowers can be trusted. Therefore, I created a powerful being that would obey its orders and never abuse its powers. Once I reveal him to the public, I plan to use him to gain the trust of all normal people and let them know that not everyone with superpowers is dangerous and to be feared. It has super strength and also the ability to regenerate itself, thus making it pretty much invincible. However, I did take into account the fact that it may disobey orders, so I've created a special kind of collar that will keep it from using its powers. It is the same collar you people are currently wearing."

The four girls looked at the gray, metallic collar they were currently wearing around their necks. "Yeah, that's what that woman next to you told us," said Yuugi, pulling against it.

"Even though I believe that those with superpowers can be trusted, there should still be precautions taken, which is why I ordered for them to be put onto you, in case you people are one of those who abuse their powers," Lex told her.

"I don't blame you for this," said Iku, pulling against the collar as well.

"I don't even have my strength! It's natural for oni to have super strength," explained Yuugi.

"The collar makes the wearer possess the power of someone his or her age," Lex explained to her, "so even if your strength is naturally very strong, it will be reduced to someone your age is supposed to have. Your fighting skills, however, are retained, so it's not like you're completely helpless when you're wearing that. People who rely on their superpowers most of the time, however, do receive a huge blow, as they are not skilled in using their natural skills to fight. You do not have to worry about those collars being on you forever, because I believe that you should be given a chance to be proven that you will not use your powers for wrongful purposes. I am willing to remove them, under the circumstance that you won't do anything reckless afterwards and will also not run out there."

"Because the people out there won't accept us for our powers, right?" Utsuho asked him. "But I won't harm them with my power! It's true that I tried to burn up the surface world once, but that's because I… misunderstood what the goddess wanted me to do… I also got too carried away from receiving my power…"

"If you let the people know that you have the power to burn up the world, I fear they won't accept you even more," Lex told her. "Therefore, until I managed to convince the people out there that people like you can be trusted and are not dangerous, I recommend that you all stay here."

"Well, as long as it's not boring here, I'm fine," said Yuugi. "We're basically your guests, so we can expect good treatment, right?"

"You have my word!" Lex assured her.

* * *

Borrowing those tiny cameras from Cyborg was a good idea after all. Believing that the culprit of the mysterious bank robbery would target other banks in the vicinity using the same method, whatever that method was, Martian Manhunter got Cyborg to lend him very small cameras that could be attached to any surface and even become invisible. He attached them to different things, such as trees and trash cans, at the outside of the vaults, hoping to catch the culprit when he or she showed up to get inside using whatever method he or she used the first time.

He then positioned himself in a place where he could get to all of the banks in the shortest time possible, a park, and paid close attention to a machine that had several screens, each of them showing what each of the cameras were capturing.

Using this method, he was able to see two people approaching a wall of one of the banks and doing something to it. Without further delay, he flew over to that bank, and there he was, standing in front of a perfectly round hole on the wall.

"So it's her after all," he said to himself while in his human disguise. After that, he stepped through the hole and entered into the bank vault. There, he saw a woman throwing bundles of money into a large bag. He paid close attention to her attire and hair color and concluded that she was indeed Yoshika's master, as her appearance fitted the description given to him by Youmu.

"You! Over there!" he loudly said to her, surprising her.

Seiga turned around with a look of surprise, but then a smile appeared on her face. "Oh my! Looks like we've been caught!" she said.

"Where is your partner in crime? I saw her coming in here with you!" John asked her.

"Up here!" said another voice that came from an unknown direction. John looked around for the source of the voice, and suddenly, he was pulled to the ceiling at a fast speed and hit his head against it hard before h6 on his back. When he sat up and rubbed his head, he saw a girl lying on her front on the ceiling in front of him.

"What the?!" he said in surprise.

"Oh, this is nothing weird… if you know me well enough," said the girl—Seija Kijin. She was wearing a white dress and had black hair with a red highlight at the front and a pair of small horns on.

John stood up and looked "up" at the floor while commenting, "Interesting power… I take that it either has something to do with gravity or the reversing of the law of physics. Depending on how you use this ability, it is something that can surely mess with your opponents' minds a lot. A rather dangerous ability, I'd say, to have for troublemakers."

"Thanks for the compliment!" commented Seija. "You are right in saying that it's an ability that reverses the law of physics! The extent to which I can manipulate it is quite big, actually! And yes, it indeed is a dangerous ability for a troublemaker to have. Fortunately, I'm the person with that ability! It's a good thing, isn't?"

"More like it's an unfortunate thing that you have such a power," John said to her. "Either you enjoy doing evil and think it's a great thing you have such a power, or you have the habit of saying the opposite."

"My! You're good at deducing things!" commented Seija. "In my 'language', however, I would say you're terrible. You don't seem surprised by this sort of thing. I take that it's because it's not the first time you've witnessed unnatural stuff like this, seeing how this place supposedly has its fair share of abnormal things going on."

"Indeed," John said to her. "Having to face several people with powers at once isn't new for me as well, so I'm going to bring the two of you in right this instant!"

"Oh! Big talker, aren't you?" asked Seiga while taking out a knife. "You shouldn't be saying things like that if you're not sure if you can really succeed, you know?"

Thanks to his mind-reading ability, John could tell that Seiga had a knife in her hand without looking at her. He then said, "There is one thing I want to make sure first. Depending on your answer, I may or may not do harm to you. There are some people who probably wouldn't be too happy if I bring you back in a rather unpleasant condition."

"What in the world are you talking about?" asked Seija while slowly waving her legs.

John turned to Seiga and asked her, "Do you or do you not have a Chinese zombie named Yoshika Miyako as an accomplice?"

Hearing this, Seiga widened her eyes in surprise and asked, "Yoshika! You know her?!"

John nodded. "Yes. She is currently at a place I am usually at."

Suddenly, Seiga flew over to him at a fast speed and placed her knife close to his throat. "What have you done to her?!" she asked in anger and with a murderous intent. "I will not forgive you if you mistreat her!" Then to both her and Seija's surprise, John sank into the ceiling and then reappeared behind Seiga.

"She is fine, so you do not have to be agitated," John said to them.

"What?! How did you do that?!" Seiga asked in surprise.

"If you will lower your weapon and put back the money you've stolen, I will take you to her," John told them. "I assure you that your accomplice is in good hands, and you will also meet people you know."

"Is that supposed to be a trap to lure us in?" asked Seija as she stood up, not really trusting him. "What makes you think you can convince us so easily?"

"You will trust me after experiencing what is going to happen now," John told them, and then his eyes gave off bright light that blinded them.

Despite their eyes being closed, they were able to see a vision in front of them, a phenomenon that surprised them greatly. The vision showed most of the residents of Gensokyo Martian Manhunter met on the Watchtower interacting with some of the Justice League members. The vision soon disappeared, and then Seiga and Seija were able to open their eyes, as John's eyes had stopped giving off light. "Do you believe me now?" John asked them.

"That… That was a telepathic vision!" Seiga said in surprise. "You have telepathic powers?!"

"Indeed, I have," said John, and then he changed back into his true form, or rather, his "superhero" form.

"Now that's a surprise!" said Seija with slightly widened eyes when she saw the transformation. "I heard about ogres of the Western culture being green. I take that you are one?"

"I am a Martian, a being not from this planet," Martian Manhunter replied. "Telepathy and mind reading are two of my powers, and what you saw just now was indeed a telepathic vision. What you saw were scenes I saw at my headquarters. I believe you know most of those people there, right?"

"I saw Yoshika… You really did meet her!" said Seiga with a surprised expression.

"Now that you believe me, I will take you to where they are," Martian Manhunter said to Seiga. "You must first put back the money you've stolen. The one you've stolen the previous night should also be returned. Since you are not from this world, I do not have the right to judge your actions. Your people will decide what should be done with what you did."

"Oh, humor me, will you? Have you ever heard of a criminal who would willingly return what he stole?" Seija asked him.

Martian Manhunter looked at her and said, "I see that you have no intention of returning what you've stolen."

"You're talking to someone who is aiming to be the biggest causer of chaos in Gensokyo, so doing something like that would go against my way of doing things," Seija said to him. "What people tell me to do, I don't do. What people do not wish to happen, I make it happen! That's the way I do things!"

After saying that, she dropped down from the ceiling, flew to the bag of money, snatched it, and then quickly headed for the hole on the wall to escape. Seeing this, Martian Manhunter stretched his hand at her, grabbed the bag of money from behind, and pulled it out of her hand.

Growling in anger, Seija ran out of the hole empty-handed and without Seiga, who was thinking of not accompanying her anymore, because she wanted to be able to meet Yoshika soon. The moment Seija ran out of the vault, a beam of light suddenly came down in front of her, much to her surprise. When the light disappeared, Reimu and Yoshika were seen standing at where it used to be. "Surprised to see me, eh?" Reimu asked the amanojaku.

A smile appeared on Seija's face as she took a step back. "Well! Look who we have here! What a surprise to see you!" she said to the shrine maiden. "I sure miss you when I was causing trouble out here and you weren't around!"

"But I don't miss seeing you…" Reimu said to her. "All right, it's the end of the road for you. You've caused enough trouble back in Gensokyo, and now you're doing the same here? It's not even your world…"

Pointing at herself with her thumb, Seija said with one eye closed, "You know that's the way I roll! Wherever I go, I make sure people pour all their hatred onto me! Whenever people want peace and order, I give them war and chaos! Sorry, but that's my nature, so I can't help it!"

"And you enjoy doing it," Reimu said to her. "All right, come with us quietly now if you don't want things to go the hard way."

Martian Manhunter and Seiga stepped out of the vault, and when Yoshika saw the latter, she happily hopped over to her, and they both embraced each other. Martian Manhunter looked at them for a few seconds before turning his eyes to Seija and said, "Come with us now. If you cooperate, no harm will be done to you. This is not your world, so it is for the best that you don't do anything reckless."

Seija turned around slightly to look at him and said, "I may not know how everything works around here, but knowing that law and peace is enforced here is more than enough for me. Like I told her earlier, if people want peace and order, I give them war and chaos! That's my nature, so I can't help it! I also enjoy it!"

"What do you hope to accomplish out here by causing chaos?" Reimu asked her. "For your information, we are in an alternate universe where Gensokyo doesn't exist. Refusal to come back with us may lead to you getting stranded here, so you better stop messing around and come back! Or do you want me to deal with you the hard way first?"

"I know your personality very well! You wish to accomplish things the easy way, and my nature is to give people the opposite of what they want!" Seija said as she bent toward her slightly with armed crossed. "I admit that getting stranded here is something unpleasant, but being kept under watch after going back with you is unpleasant as well, though not as bad as getting stranded here. Even so, you know I'm not the kind of person who likes to be kept under watch at all times and not given the freedom to do whatever I want. You want me to be a good girl, but I give you a bad girl instead! Therefore, since you wish to take me in without any trouble, I prefer giving you a bit of trouble first before allowing myself to be taken in!"

"Long answer short: you want it the hard way! Fine! I'll give it to you!" Reimu said to her in frustration and with a raised temper.

"Ah! So you're angry! It makes me happy whenever I drive someone mad!" Seija said with a glad expression. Reimu ran towards her and swung her gohei at her, but she quickly leaped into the air by performing a back flip, and then she remained floating there in an upright position. "I'll allow you to take me back if you can stop me! Just think of it as trying to bring me in whenever I'm causing an incident back in Gensokyo!"

"I'll definitely get you!" Reimu said in frustration. The amanojaku then flew away, and the shrine maiden went after her while shouting for her to come back.

The other three watched them leave, and Martian Manhunter asked Seiga, "Should we help Reimu?"

"You can feel free to help Reimu if you want to," Seiga replied. "I have no interest in helping her."

* * *

**BGM: Reverse Ideology (metal remix made by a Youtube user named Alex Yin)**

Flying backwards, Seija taunted Reimu with her arms crossed, "C'mon! Fly faster! Is that the best you can do? I can fly faster than you without looking at the front!"

"Don't get too cocky!" Reimu angrily said before throwing paper amulets at her, but she dodged them by flying side to side.

"Is that the best you can aim? I'll show you how aiming is done!" Seija said before flicking her hand upwards. By doing this, she caused a car parked underneath Reimu to suddenly fly into her from below, pushing her into the air. Reimu quickly got off the car before it carried her way too high into the air and then went after Seija again.

"I'll get you for this!" said the shrine maiden.

"Try your worst!" Seija said as she flicked her hand again. Another car flew up from below Reimu, but she managed to dodge it this time. Seija flicked her index finger this time, and when Reimu looked down, she saw a trash can flying straight up, so she quickly moved back to avoid getting hit by it, and the moment it was at the same level as her, she kicked it from behind to send it flying toward the amanojaku. She managed to dodge it, however. "Nice move! Didn't hit me, though!"

Reimu then took out a paper amulet and threw it over Seija's head, to which the latter replied, "Where are you throwing that? Is that supposed to be on purpose?" Reimu suddenly disappeared, and before Seija could figure out where she was going to come out from, the shrine maiden reappeared from above and behind her, hitting her in the back of the head with a dive kick that sent her shooting diagonally downwards. Seija flew close to the pavement before coming to a stop and then landing on her feet.

She turned around and looked at the shrine maiden landing while saying, "Well, that was unexpected! Looks like I was right in saying that you did that intentionally! Even if your aim is bad, it can't be that bad! I know a lot about you already from our various encounters!"

"Then you should already that every time you cause trouble, I will be there to stop you!" Reimu said with several paper amulets in her hand. "You never learn your lesson, do you?"

"Because I don't listen to anything anyone tells me!" Seija replied. "You want me to learn my lesson, but I don't! It feels great to disobey people and mess with them in ways they don't like, especially you! You're constantly trying to enforce order and peace in Gensokyo, but since it is my nature to make things the opposite, there's not better person than you to pick on! Even if my loss record against you is high, I still get a kick seeing you get frustrated every time you hear that it's me up to no good again! It makes me thrilled to…" Before she could finish her phrase, Reimu threw the amulets at her, but she bent back her body to let them pass over her.

"I never liked your talkative nature as well!" said Reimu.

"Then I'll keep on talking!" said Seija. The shrine maiden threw more amulets, as well as needles, at her, but she dodged them with swift and acrobatic movements, most of them involving flipping upside-down and standing on her hands. When Reimu ran toward her to hit her with her gohei, she managed to dodge each of the strikes with the same kinds of movements as well.

After performing another back flip to escape getting hit, Seija flicked her hand towards herself and said, "Reverse Bow: Dream Bow of Heaven and Earth!" Realizing what she was saying, Reimu looked back just in time to see energy arrows materializing out of thin air and flying at her. The shrine maiden quickly back flipped into the air to avoid them, but to her horror, there were also arrows appearing in the air and flying towards her.

Other than crossing her arms in front of herself, there was nothing else that could be done to defend herself. After enduring the arrows, the shrine maiden fell to the pavement and hit her head against it. Seija looked up and saw that she was slightly underneath a balcony, so she pointed her hand at it and then swung down the former to make it shake a few times before getting torn off the wall and falling towards her.

Seeing this in time, Reimu quickly rolled to the side and barely escaped getting hit by the falling balcony. She got up on one knee and growled angrily at the smirking amanojaku.

Suddenly, Martian Manhunter rose from the pavement behind her and caught her from underneath the shoulders, much to her surprise. "What the?! When did you get here?!" she asked.

"I can phase through anything I want," the Martian told her. "Surrender now! I have you captured!"

"Oh, you think so?" said Seija, and then she waved her arm forward. "Reverse Bow: Dream Bow of Heaven and Earth!" Several energy arrows shot in from behind, hitting the Martian in the back and making him let go of her in pain. Seija flew up into the air and smirked while looking down at those two.

Just then, a little boy appeared at a window next to her while rubbing his eyes. "What's happening out here?" he asked with a drowsy expression. When Seija saw the little boy, a nasty idea came to her head as a devious grin appeared on her face. She grabbed the boy by the collar, pulled him out of the window, and held him in the air by his shoulders. "Wah! What are you doing?! Put me down!"

Needless to say, Reimu and Martian Manhunter were surprised by her action. "Seija! What are you doing?!" the former asked her.

"You want me to go back quietly, right?" Seija asked her. "Let's make a deal, shall we? If either of you can save this boy from his impending doom, I will consider what you told me. This should be an easier way than trying to beat me into submission, don't you think so?"

"How dare you do something like this?!" Reimu growled in anger. "Let that boy go at once!"

"Okay, but he's not going down!" said Seija, and when she let go of the boy's shoulder, he shot straight into the air while screaming.

"SEIJA! HOW DARE YOU?!" Reimu shouted in anger before flying at the amanojaku at a fast speed and grabbing her by the collar. Martian Manhunter, on the other hand, quickly flew for the boy as fast as he could.

After grabbing Seija by the collar, Reimu punched her across the face with the other hand and then forcefully flung her downwards. When Seija came to a stop in the air, she was quickly hit in the face by a dive kick from the shrine maiden and sent shooting onto the pavement.

CRAAAAAAAAAAASH!

Seija got up while rubbing her face and growling in pain, and she still wasn't finished doing that when Reimu lifted her up by the collar and said in anger to her, "Don't you think you have enough?!"

"Angry at me, aren't you? C'mon! Throw all your hate at me! That's the way I like it!" Seija said to her with a glad expression. The shrine maiden gritted her teeth in anger before letting out a frustrated cry while throwing her against a wall.

BANG!

She then punched the amanojaku across the face multiple times and also kneed her in the abdomen hard. Despite receiving the brutal beating, Seija laughed and said, "Yeah! Unleash your anger at me! The more you hate me, the more I like it!"

Reimu grabbed her by the neck and then threw her to the side, and the latter hit her head against the side of a trash container. Reimu then grabbed her by the back and threw her onto the pavement. She then placed one foot onto her back and pulled up her head by the hair. "Do you have enough? Don't make me do something I'm going to regret!" she said to her.

"Regret? What regret do you have if you killed me? Isn't that what you always wanted to do?" asked Seija with a smile on her face. "You know, I wouldn't mind dying all that much if I manage to make the person who killed me do that with a mind full of rage and hate!"

Growling in anger, Reimu forcefully picked her up, flung her at the wall, and then slapped a paper amulet onto the area just below her neck. When Seija touched the amulet, her hand got zapped by it. "It's an amulet designed to nullify the powers of demons," Reimu said to her. "Not only can you not use your power until I remove it, but anything that got affected by your power will also change back to normal."

**BGM Ends**

Just then, Martian Manhunter flew down to where they were with the boy in his arms. "I've managed to rescue the boy," the Martian told Reimu, "and I heard what you said just now, so I assume that it's safe to put him down now?"

Reimu nodded. "Yeah, it should be all right to put him down now. He'll definitely stay on the ground."

"Well, looks like you managed to win again! It was worth seeing you go mad like that, though!" Seija said to Reimu with a smile. "We should do this…" Before she could finish her phrase, Reimu suddenly punched her in the guts hard, followed by pulling her head forward and then pushing it back to slam it against the wall hard.

BANG!

The amanojaku laughed weakly as she slowly fell down and passed out in a sitting position. Reimu let out a sigh and then said, "Well, that takes care of that… We can go back now. By the way, where are Seiga and Yoshika?"

"They're teleported to the Watchtower already," Martian Manhunter told her.

"Good to know that the former didn't cause any trouble," Reimu said without taking her eyes off Seija. "We'll have to keep an eye on this one, though. She's a mad dog who will use pretty much every opportunity she can to mess with us."

"We'll definitely have to keep an eye on her," Martian Manhunter said with a nod.

* * *

TO BE CONTINUED

I "turned" Seija into the Joker! Ha!


	10. Return and Conquer

I made mention of where the BGM ends in the previous chapter.

**Chapter 10  
Return and Conquer**

* * *

Nobody was around when these incredibly small meteoroids entered Earth's atmosphere, surprisingly without burning up. They landed in different parts of the United States, creating small craters without making too much noise, at least not enough to alert people.

Several seconds after the arrival of these meteoroids, they suddenly grew in size until they were as big as a car, and then cracks appeared on them…

* * *

It was on the same night Seiga and Seija were found were several other girls from Gensokyo found. With the help of the girls who have already been found by the Justice League members, the latter managed to find more and more of the residents from Gensokyo in places where signals of boom tubes were detected. Even though the portals were no longer around, the league's technology was still able to detect traces of their signals. The founded residents would accompany some of the league members in searching for the other residents, because having familiar faces made it so that no unnecessary conflicts would occur.

As the number of Gensokyo's residents increased, someone eventually asked the inevitable question. "Why is every single one of you women?" asked Steel. "Not that I'm complaining, mind you…"

None of the girls who understood English seemed to bother answering his question, and the other league members weren't asking, too. Pretending that Steel never asked that, Cyborg said, "Seems that those boom tubes didn't only bring over you girls, but also remains of Cybroxes, pieces of their technology, and even… trees and rocks…"

"Well, the portal is big and has a very powerful sucking force," explained Aya. "Even at my top speed, I couldn't fight against it…"

"It's becoming harder and harder looking for your people too," Cyborg added. "It's obvious that they won't stay in one place, so if we don't go to the locations of the boom tubes within a day, we're going to have a hard time finding them."

"I just hope that they don't cause trouble to the people here…" said Reimu. "Things won't be clean if Rumia is here… She eats humans…"

"Eat humans? She could be a problem…" said Wonder Woman. "Are all demons like that?"

"Well, it's true that demons tend to have an appetite for humans, but not everyone single one of them are feral and cannot be reasoned with," Reimu explained to her. "Some, like Meiling, are friendly toward humans, and though she does eat humans, or so she claims, she prefers making friends with them. Rumia pretty much cannot be reasoned with, and her innocent child-like appearance makes her all the more dangerous to people who are not familiar with her…"

"She's not one of those we found, right?" Martian Manhunter asked her, and the shrine maiden shook her head in response.

"On the bright side, finding her shouldn't be too hard!" said Cyborg. "What I mean is… if she really did cause trouble, the news should talk about this, about someone claiming to have been attacked by a maniacal girl who wants to eat him. We can use that as a method for tracking her down! And before anyone criticizes me, I do not wish for anyone to get hurt in the process of us tracking her down! Just bringing up an easy method for finding her, that's all…"

"I just remembered… We haven't really gotten to know you people yet," Superman brought up. "I think it'll help if we get to know you better and also your world."

"I can say the same to you too," said Reimu.

"Okay, then let's properly and formally introduce ourselves to each other tomorrow!" suggested Superman.

* * *

Early in the morning of the second day, it was discovered that a robbery had occurred at a gold mine. When one of its workers went into the mine, he found that all the gold there was missing. Even the ones put into crates and mine carts were nowhere in sight.

The gold mine wasn't the only mine with its property stolen. A mercury mine elsewhere was also reported to have its mercury missing.

At the same time, a gas station located somewhere in the desert was discovered to have been destroyed. Its charred remains made its owners wonder what on earth happened. There was also the question of where the fire went…

Elsewhere, a cargo ship was reported to have its shipment of glassware missing.

* * *

The Hall of Justice, like Batman said before, was the Justice League's other headquarters located on Earth, and it was also something of a tourist attraction. After all, who wouldn't want to visit a place where superheroes gather and get to see them, not to mention being able to get close to them and interact with them?

Of course, there were places in the building that were off-limits to everyone except members of the league. Such an important place obviously had to have limits, or else top secret information might leak out to the public, and the league members probably wouldn't want to know what would happen after that…

It was also the place where Superman thought would be a good location for all the residents of Gensokyo and all the league members to gather at if they wanted to introduce themselves to each other properly. All this took place inside a large conference room that was big enough to contain everyone. Not all of the league members were present, as some of them were too busy to come.

Since the introduction was for the girls, Superman spoke Japanese, but because there were league members who didn't understand that language, Martian Manhunter translated and transferred what he said to them telepathically.

"After taking down the last of the Appellaxians, we realized that it was because of teamwork that we managed to take down this alien threat," Superman explained to the residents Gensokyo while pointing his hand at a large screen that showed a picture of himself and Batman facing off against what appeared to be a crystal humanoid. The screen then changed to showing a photo of the two aforementioned heroes, Wonder Woman, Aqua Man, Green Lantern, the Flash, Martian Manhunter, and Cyborg standing side to side. "These are the eight founding members of the Justice League. The concept of superheroes teaming up to protect the universe sounded good to other heroes, so more and more joined the league."

"Wow! What a story!" Aya commented while jotting down important details. "I can't wait to bring this story back to Gensokyo and let the people there know! I hope you people won't mind!"

"I'm sure none of us will mind!" Superman told her. "Anyway, I am the leader of the Justice League," Superman said to the girls. "I am from the planet Krypton, which means I am an alien to this world. When my planet faced destruction due to its unstable core, my parents sent me to this planet to live on and also to bring hope to it, teaching them how they should live life and help them with their troubles."

"Your planet was destroyed?!" asked Sanae in shock. "That's terrible…"

"It's a sad thing indeed, but I've gotten over it," said Superman. "Like I said earlier, my parents wish for me to be the hope and savior of this planet, so I am honoring them by doing what they want me to do."

"There is something I am curious about," said Eirin while raising her hand. "From what I know about your powers, shouldn't it be possible for your kind to survive the destruction of your planet?"

"That's a good question!" Superman said to her. "You see, Kryptonian biology is unique in the way that when we are exposed to a yellow sun, our abilities become enhanced, and we develop powers like invulnerability, super strength, super speed, heat vision, freeze breath, and x-ray vision. We can even hold our breaths for a very long time! However, when exposed to a red sun, we are only as strong as a normal human from Earth. Because Krypton has a red sun, they are not safe from the destruction of the planet."

"A red sun?" said Aya curiously.

"Yeah, a sun that is red. It makes the sky look like its evening, even in the middle of the day," Superman explained to her.

The Man of Steel then gave the girls a simple introduction of each of the league's founding members.

Wonder Woman was the princess of the Amazonians from an island that was originally hidden from the rest of the world using magic before they decided that they should start opening themselves to the outside world. The Amazonians consisted of entirely skilled women warriors, and they used magic to prolong their life span and beauty.

Batman was a vigilante from Gotham City and was a master detective and a highly skilled fighter who also used high-tech gadgets.

The Flash was the fastest man in the world, capable of traveling faster than light and even travel through time.

Green Lantern was a member of the intergalactic police force called the Green Lantern Corps. They wore rings that allowed them to do whatever they could think of, and the more willpower they had, the more powerful things they could do with their rings.

Martian Manhunter was a Green Martian. Despite the Martians having superpowers that were possible for them to rival Superman himself, they were a peaceful race who avoided violence as much as possible. He also told them that Earth was trying to establish a better relationship and contact with Mars.

Aquaman was the king of the underwater city Atlantis. Superman told the girls that Atlanteans were a different species from humans and that Aquaman himself was half-human. Despite being half-human, he still had all the attributes of an Atlantean and could even communicate with all kinds of sea life telepathically.

Cyborg was met with a terrible accident involving a gelatinous monster that left him at the brink of death, but his father managed to keep him alive by replacing parts of his body with cybernetic parts.

"Well, it your girls' turn," Superman said to them. "I'm not asking every single one of you to properly introduce yourselves. Some of you are probably a bit shy to say something in front of so many people. You can let your friends introduce you or something like that. At least let us know your names."

And so, the girls from Gensokyo did as Superman said. Some of them had no problem standing up and introducing themselves with more than just their names. Some, like Marisa, Aya, and Cirno, were fairly talkative and talked about what they were capable of and some of their feats. Some simply stood up and said their names before sitting back down.

Finally, there was only one girl left. That girl, who had white and partly blue hair, a pair of small horns growing out of her head, and a pair of bird wings growing out of her back, was about to introduce herself when an alarm suddenly went off.

"What is that?" asked Marisa.

"There's trouble down on Earth!" replied Superman. Without further ado, the founding members quickly rushed out of the room to go to the control room in order to see what was happening.

* * *

The founding members of the league came to the control room, and Cyborg turned on the screen of the computer they use for investigating everything happening on Earth. After pressing the button that would instantly show them what the distress was about, multiple footages of news reports showed up. The league members were surprised at what they saw.

"By the goddesses! What are those?!" asked Wonder Woman.

Each of the news reports were reporting about large monsters terrorizing various cities and a coast in the United States. The monsters consisted of a wolf made of fire, a snake made of silver liquid, a stone rhinoceros, a golden eagle, a barracuda that was completely made of glass, and a tortoise that was compromised of plants, wood, and soil.

"Did someone let the animals out of the zoo, and then they got into some freak accidents to become… um… elemental?" said the Flash in a jokingly manner, even though it wasn't the time to be joking around.

Batman observed each of the monsters carefully, and then he came to a conclusion. "Each of them is compromised of different elements," he said. "There was one other time when we faced beings like them."

That was when the other league members realized what he was trying to say. "The Appellaxians!" said Hal. "I knew that golden bird looked familiar!"

"They're back?! But I thought they repented from their ways!" said the Flash. "They made a promise to us to never again use planet domination as their way of deciding who the ruler of their planet should be!"

"What if they are back for revenge?" asked Martian Manhunter. "Just because their leaders agreed to stop that method of deciding rulers doesn't necessary mean they no longer hold a grudge against us for defeating them in the first place."

"Furthermore, we can't be sure if they are the same ones from that time," added Superman. "Appellaxians use host bodies to give themselves different appearances, so it's possible that the ones we're seeing right now are different ones possessing host bodies just like the ones that invaded Earth that time. Anyway, there's no time to lose! We have to split up and stop them before they cause too much damage!"

Suddenly, another alarm went off, so Cyborg pressed the same button again to bring up another news report. This one was reporting about a man with brownish-gray skin wearing green pants causing havoc to a city. The league members were even more shocked to see him. "Amazo!" said Superman.

"What is he doing out there?! I thought we had his parts separated into pieces and locked away safely!" said Cyborg.

"Oh boy… Looks like it's going to be a long day…" said the Flash. "This guy spells more trouble than those all of those Appellaxians combined! Even with all the heavy hitters of the league, it still took a long time to take him down, and the amount of damage caused in the process was no laughing matter!"

"Indeed, Amazo is a serious issue that requires almost all the heavy hitters of the league to take down," agreed Martian Manhunter. "However, the Appellaxians shouldn't be taken lightly either."

"We'll definitely need all the heavy hitters to go after Amazo, but the Appellaxians need those with superpowers to take them too," said Batman. "I'm not trying to downplay the power of the ones among us with no superpowers. I'm just being realistic."

"Batman is right," agreed Superman. "While we need all the metahumans we can against Amazo, we can't leave the Appellaxians with none to go against. Anyway, we have the let others know about this first, and then we'll try to come up with a plan.

Without further delay, the founding members rushed back the conference room, and Superman told everyone there the situation.

"This is a serious situation," Superman said to everyone. "Even as we speak, the Appellaxians and Amazo are causing a large amount of damage out there. The latter is especially a problem to us, as some of you here may be able to testify. We will need all the heavy hitters we have if we want to take him down in the shortest time possible, but the Appellaxians shouldn't be underestimated as well. We'll need to decide on different teams to take on each of the enemies, and each team must have a few metahumans. The Appellaxians are definitely not something you can bring down easily."

While Superman was saying this, Marisa said to Reimu, "He looks desperate… I wonder if we should do something too."

"I'm not a fan of getting involved in things that has nothing to do with," said Reimu, "but considering that they helped look for the each of us, I would be an ungrateful person if I didn't repay them somehow…"

Hearing this, Aya asked her, "So… are you going to lend a hand in this? I'm actually quite excited about getting in on the action! This is a great opportunity to surprise them with what we can offer!"

As she was saying this, Suwako stood up from her seat with her arm raised into the air. "I propose that while you people go and deal with that guy called Amazo, we from Gensokyo will deal with the Appellaxians!"

"Well, looks like she has the same thought as yours…" Marisa said to Aya.

"I was actually thinking of asking you people for help earlier," Superman said to the goddess. "However, since you are not from this world, I do not wish you to get you involved in things that do not relate to you."

"You offered us shelter and also helped look for our members, so we should repay you! This is one way we can repay you, I believe!" Suwako told him. "Don't underestimate us! I'm sure all of us here fought bravely against the invaders who came to our homeland. If we managed to take down a large army, then I'm sure we can deal with a couple of aliens!"

Superman considered what she said, and then Batman said to him, "This is probably the best course of action to take now, Superman. These people have metahuman abilities, so I'm sure they'll be able to handle the Appellaxians."

"You have a point," Superman said with a nod, and then he turned to the girls. "I apologize for getting you involved in this, but seeing how we need all the help we can and the fact that you are willing to lend us a hand, I beg of you to help us the best you can in defending this planet!"

Suwako winked and made an okay sign with her hand. "You can bet on us!"

Suika jumped up from her seat with her arms raised into the air while shouting, "Yeehaw! Time to go wild!"

* * *

No sooner after this, Superman and the superheroes that were considered powerful enough to stand up to Amazo quickly left for the city the ability-copying android was wrecking havoc in. After they were gone, Batman led the remaining heroes and some of the girls over to the control room. Once there, he showed everyone the Appellaxians on the screen.

"There are six of them in six different locations," Batman said in Japanese to the girls. "After hearing about what some of you girls are capable of, I believe you should form teams that are capable of taking down each of the Appellaxians using their weaknesses. For example, the glass Appellaxian in the sea is best dealt with by people who are capable of fighting underwater and those who are capable of using high-pitched sound as attacks, as glass can be shattered by such." Then he turned to Aquaman and Black Canary. "I trust that the two of you will be of help in dealing with that one."

They continued coming up with teams and plans to take down each of the Appellaxians, and when they were finally done, the Dark Knight told everyone to get ready and then head out to their destinations using the Hall of Justice's teleporter fast.

As everyone was getting ready, Batman entered the coordinates for the teleportation, and while doing so, there was one thing he was wondering about: if these Appellaxians were using the same kind of host bodies as the previous ones, then where was the crystal one?

This question made him feel uneasy…

* * *

TO BE CONTINUED

For characters who were responsible for causing the creation of the original Justice League, the Appellaxians don't get much attention in medias, don't they? The only form of media they appeared in is an episode of Young Justice, and only four of them are featured…

Now's my chance to make them shine!

I originally intended to have some or most of the girls introduce themselves in a proper manner and also include reactions from some of the league members, but because it was too time-consuming and tiring, I dropped that idea, so I apologize to anyone who were looking forward to a scene like that…

I also thought of letting you know what the teams that are going after each of the Appellaxians are, but I haven't figured out a proper team for the most part yet, so I'll leave that for the next chapter.

Below is a list of Touhou girls found by the Justice League:

Reimu, Marisa, Orange, Kurumi, Sara, Alice, Mai, Cirno, Meiling, Sakuya, Chen, Lyrica, Merlin, Lunasa, Youmu, Suika, Keine, Reisen, Eirin, Kaguya, Mokou, Aya, Komachi, Shizuha, Nitori, Momiji, Suwako, Tenshi, Parsee, Rin, Nazrin, Kogasa, Ichirin, Minamitsu, Shou, Hatate, Kyouko, Yoshika, Seiga, Tojiko, Kokoro, Wakasagihime, Sekibanki, Kagerou, Benben, Yatsuhashi, Seija, Raiko, Tokiko, Rin Satsuki

Those aren't everyone yet, however. You will have to find out by yourselves who else got brought to the DC universe as the story progresses.


	11. The Brave and the Bold

**SBS Time!  
Guest: **Rin Satsuki? As in the kirin menace from the infamous Imperfect Metamorphosis story here on this site? Are you going to take anything from that story?  
**Game2002: **Rin Satsuki is a cancelled character from Touhou 6 and not an original creation from Imperfect Metamorphosis, assuming you think she's one. Since I didn't take a serious look at that story, there won't be anything from that story here. The only things we know about her is that she is likely a kirin and a nurse, but they are only fan speculations. Everything else about her in Imperfect Metamorphosis is made up.

**Guest: **Who is Orange?  
**Game2002: **She's the first boss of Touhou 4 and looks a lot like Meiling.

Had quite a hard time coming up with this chapter, but I'm glad things turned out well in the end!

Hope you enjoy it!

**Chapter 11  
The Brave and the Bold**

* * *

A beast made entirely out of dark-colored rock standing thirty meters tall, the rock Appellaxian in the form of a rhinoceros charged through an unfortunate city, tearing down every building he came across and trampling whatever was in his way. The alien eventually came to a stop and then raised his head into the air while letting out a loud howl-like cry, likely out of satisfaction after having caused so much damage.

Suddenly, an unlikely challenger appeared almost out of nowhere through the method of sizing increasing. Growing to the same size as the Appellaxian, Suika taunted him, "Hey you! Looking for someone to pick a fight with? C'mon! I'll gladly take on you!"

The Appellaxian did not know who she was nor did he understand what she said, but since she looked like she wanted to challenge him, he wouldn't give no for an answer. The Appellaxian raised his hind legs into the air while letting out another howl-like cry before charging forward on all fours to run down the giant oni, thinking it would be a short and easy fight.

"That's the spirit!" Suika said as she pulled back her fist. She waited for the Appellaxian to get closer and closer and closer… and then she unleashed a powerful uppercut at his chin, shattering his head into seemingly hundreds of pieces.

SMAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAASH!

The rest of the body flipped back through the air as rocks rained down around it, and when it hit the pavement on its back, it quickly crumbled into pieces. Suika flexed her arm and exclaimed, "Yeah! I win! I don't mind a short and simple victory if it ends with a bang!"

Nearby, Steel, Raiko, and Tenshi were at a loss of words at how fast the oni managed to take out the Appellaxian. The fact that she resolved everything by herself made their presence absolutely pointless.

"Seriously?!" Steel said in disbelief.

"For someone who likes to have fun, she sure knows how to take the fun away from other people…" grumbled Tenshi.

* * *

The giant golden eagle which is the Appellaxian that used gold as his host body soared through the air at a fast speed that caused a large amount of wind to be whipped up, blowing away and tearing up almost everything underneath it. Even buildings were not safe from having pieces of their exterior and their glass panels getting torn off and blown away.

The golden Appellaxian screeched loudly as he made a u-turn, planning to fly across the city again to cause even more damage to it. However, shortly after he turned around, someone flew into him at a fast speed and smashed him in the face with a mace, causing him to go off course, but he recovered before coming anywhere close to the pavement.

After landing a blow to the Appellaxian, Hawkgirl turned around to face him and then threw her mace at him. However, the Appellaxian easily swatted it away with his wing, only to get hit from behind by something that hurt more or less just as much as Hawkgirl's mace. He turned around in anger just in time to see another mace returning to Hawkman.

Suddenly, Aya shot down diagonally from above, hitting him hard in the side of the head with a powerful dive kick. Momiji then dashed past him, leaving behind a gash on his left wing using her sword. Just as the Appellaxian was recovering from the assaults, Hatate, after having locked onto various parts of his body using her cell phone, fired several energy beams that homed in on and struck the targeted spots.

The Appellaxian screeched in anger at being attacked from various directions by several people at once, but he wasn't even done screeching yet when Mokou shot up from below with a pair of fiery wings on her back, hitting him in the chin with a powerful, fiery uppercut.

POW!

After that, Mokou, with her fingers on her, raised her hand into the air and pulled it back. "Hollow Giant: Woo!" Swinging down her hands, she released fiery claw marks that made the Appellaxian feel like he was really slashed by burning claws when struck in the face. His left eye was also made blind as a result.

Realizing that he was being overwhelmed, the Appellaxian spread out his wings in an attempt to push away everyone around himself, especially Mokou, and then he quickly flew away as fast as he could, heading in the direction of the outskirt of the city.

"Don't let him get away!" said Hawkman loudly before giving chase with everyone else.

"You think you can outrun me? Think again!" said Aya as she flew at a speed that surpassed her comrades. She quickly caught up with the Appellaxian and followed it from above. "See? You can't outrun me!"

The Appellaxian suddenly performed a spin in an attempt to hit her with his wings, but she saw this coming in the nick of time and avoided it by moving higher up. The Appellaxian then backed away from the tengu before flapping his wings hard to fire golden feathers that shot through the air like darts, but Aya managed to dodge them with ease.

Hawkman and Hawkgirl deflected the incoming feathers with their maces when the former headed for them. Seeing that the others were closing in on him, the Appellaxian flapped even harder to fire more feathers at once. Aya dodged them while moving back a bit of a distance from him, and then she swung her fan hard to unleash a large vertical tornado.  
"Wind Sign: Wind of the Tengu Path!" The feathers were caught in the tornado and brought back in a spinning motion to the Appellaxian. Not only did the tornado push him back through the air while making him spin, he was also stabbed by his own feathers.

The others finally caught up with Aya, and then Mokou said to her, "Seeing you do that just now gave me an idea! Batman told me to come along so I can easily defeat that guy with my fire."

"I get it! Use my wind to fan your fire! Smart thinking!" Aya said to her, and then she pulled back her fan. "All right! Let's do this! Wind Sind: Wind of the Tengu Path!" She performed the same attack again, and then Mokou quickly pointed her hands at the tornado to release two streams of fire that quickly combined with each other to become one large stream of fire. When the fire came in contact with the tornado, a fiery tornado was created.

The Appellaxian had just recovered from the previous attack when the fire tornado struck him. He screamed in agony as his body of gold started to melt away from the intense heat. When all that was left of him was the neck and the head, Hawkman flew above him and gave him a powerful strike to the top of the latter.

SMAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAASH!

What was left of the Appellaxian shot straight to the ground and shattered into pieces, and shortly after that, trails of light green energy came out from the pieces and merged together on the ground to form what appeared to be an orange-skinned, bald humanoid wearing a futuristic battle suit of some kind. He groaned in pain as he crawled forward a few steps before standing up, and then the people who fought him landed all around him, making him scared.

"Is this his true form?" Hatate asked.

Hawkman grabbed the alien by the shoulder from behind and replied, "Yes, this is their true form. We'll be taking him alive. Also, great job, everyone!"

* * *

The sea was probably the worst place to run into danger, as humans simply weren't born to travel on water at a proper speed. Even if one were on a large ship, there was nothing one could do when danger was approaching at a speed faster than the ship could move.

The crew of a cargo ship was panicking greatly at the sight of something nearly invisible piercing through the water like a torpedo and heading in their direction. They had earlier witnessed another cargo ship getting destroyed when this thing, whatever it was, went through it like going through paper, and now it was heading in their direction.

Just when hope seemed lost, something hit the "invisible" thing from the side, causing it to go off course. The crew members didn't know what happened, but they were relieved, knowing that they managed to escape danger.

Underwater, Aquaman managed to push a large barracuda made of glass away from the cargo ship. Having a body made of glass and being underwater were the perfect combination for being nearly invisible, but even so, the king of Atlantis was still able to see him, albeit with a bit of squinting.

Aquaman pushed the Appellaxian away from the ship as far as he could before shoving him forward to get ready to engage him properly. The alien glared at him for a few seconds before opening his mouth and then charging at him, but he managed to catch him by the lower jaw and then swung him in a circle once before hurling him away. As the Appellaxian "soared" through the water, Minamitsu made herself visible and pulled back her anchor, and when the fish made of glass was close, she swung it at his back.

However, as the Appellaxian was able to charge through ships without shattering himself, he was able to withstand getting hit by an anchor. The hit caused him to fly back a little, and then he swung his tail at her, to which she responded by swinging her anchor at it to deflect it. Deciding that he had to come up with a strategy of some kind first, the Appellaxian quickly turned and swam away from the ship ghost as fast as he could, but even at his top speed, he was no match for the swimming speed of Aquaman.

The king of Atlantis caught him from behind. As the Appellaxian struggled to escape his grasp, Wakasagihime swam towards him and then stopped at a certain distance before swinging her tail hard to unleash a barrage of scale-shaped energy projectiles. However, if even an anchor wasn't able to shatter his exterior, then projectiles not meant to do fatal harm to people most definitely wouldn't do anything to it.

Seeing her as a minor nuisance that can be taken care of with ease, the Appellaxian turned to her in an attempt to crush her with his jaws, but the mermaid quickly swam to the side and then, with a powerful swing of her tail, gave him a slapping that hurt more than it seemed.

Being underwater was a good thing for Wakasagihime after all, as it was where her power would increase greatly, surpassing the strength of humans. Even her projectile attacks were stronger, though that didn't seem obvious when she used them against the alien…

Still grabbing onto his tail, Aquaman swam up fast, heading for the surface and dragging the Appellaxian along with him. When he leaped out of the water, he flung the alien high into the air, a sight that surprised the crews of the aforementioned cargo ship.

Nearby, Black Canary and Kyouko were standing in a motorboat. Knowing what they had to do when they saw the alien being hurled into the air, they both took a deep breath and then screamed as loud as they could to unleash sound waves that made the air look distorted.

When the sound waves came in contact with the airborne Appellaxian, cracks appeared all over his body. It was a known fact that high-pitched sound frequency was capable of shattering glass, which was why Black Canary and Kyouko were chosen to deal with this particular Appellaxian.

With cracks all over his body, the Appellaxian fell back into the water, pieces of his body breaking off when he hit the surface. Wakasagihime attacked with projectiles in the same manner again, and thanks to his body being cracked, they were able to go through him and shatter him even more. The Appellaxian let out a cry that was barely audible underwater, and then trails of light green energy came out from him just before the whole thing shattered into pieces. The trails of energy went to the water surface and gathered together to become his true form.

As the Appellaxian flailed his arms around in water, not because he didn't know how to swim, but because he was panicking and wondering what to do next, Aquaman caught him from behind and then swam for the motorboat to throw him onto it. He then got onto the motorboat himself, while Minamitsu and Wakasagihime poked their upper torsos out next to it. "Good work, girls!" Aquaman said to his comrades.

Knowing that the girls from Gensokyo didn't understand what he said, he gave them a thumb up to let them know that they did a great job. Minamitsu gave him a thumb up as well. Kyouko flapping her ears in a manner that made her look really adorable as she happily exclaimed that she helped defeated an enemy, while Black Canary smiled and petted her on the head.

* * *

After taking a deep breath, Suwako released a large amount of water from her mouth at the Appellaxian taking the form of a fiery wolf. However, the Appellaxian wasn't one to stand in one place when his weakness was heading in his direction. He caused his body to split into separate trails of fire that went around the water and gathered together behind the goddess to change back to normal.

Suwako looked back in surprise, and the Appellaxian was about to breathe fire at her when suddenly a vertical tornado struck him from the side and blew him away.

After pushing the Appellaxian out of the way and saving Suwako, Red Tornado flew toward the alien while it was in the midst of getting back up and pointed his hands at him to cause a tornado to start forming around him. The tornado started off short, but it quickly grew to a towering size that trapped the Appellaxian within it, eventually causing his host body to merge with it and become a fiery tornado.

Suwako decided this was the perfect time to act. Clasping her hands, she said out loud, "Spring Sign: Horrid River Jade!" A large amount of water, more so than when she released it from her mouth, gushed out of the sand behind her and rushed towards the fire tornado. Despite the water running into the goddess from behind, she wasn't pushed forward at all, almost as if she was a rock firmly embedded to the ground.

The water came in contact with the fire tornado, merging with it and quickly dowsing the fire, and a loud, painful howl could be heard coming from it. Eventually, the tornado died down, and the Appellaxian, in his true form, fell to the sand on his front, accomplished by millions and millions of drops of water.

Red Tornado, Suwako, and Nitori approached the seemingly unconscious Appellaxian, and the latter asked, "Is this what he is supposed to look like?"

Suwako translated what she said to Red Tornado, and the android replied, "I may not have faced the Appellaxians when they first came, but I have seen the league's database and can confirm that this is what they actually look like."

"Doesn't look intimidating to me at all…" Suwako commented. "No wonder they chose to have host bodies to make themselves stronger and fiercer-looking! Too bad being in the desert doesn't mean there's absolutely no water!"

* * *

A trail of mercury rushed down the street and made several turns around buildings to escape his pursuer, a woman covered in green fire.

Fire shot streams of fire that were the same color as her at the Appellaxian that used mercury as his host body, but the alien, despite not looking back at her, was able to tell that the shots were approaching and thus avoided them by bending his liquid body and even making holes in them. Nevertheless, the fiery superheroine continued to attack him, hoping that she would eventually get a shot.

The Appellaxian made another turn and, shortly after doing so, crashed into something seemingly invisible. As it turned out, Reimu had created a large translucent wall in front of him to block his progress forward, a plan she came up with when the alien started running from them.

Fire quickly caught up with the alien, and, taking advantage of him running into a dead end, released a large amount of fire from her hands at him. The Appellaxian quickly leaped over a building at the side, though the fire did manage to hit it. However, being exposed to it for a very short amount of time wasn't enough to do fatal harm to it.

"Man! He's good at escaping!" Fire commented.

The Appellaxian landed on the other side of the building and then took the form of a snake. Shortly after changing into that form, he was shot in the side of the head by something very small, and though it didn't hurt him, it was still enough to make him realize that something had hit him, so he turned and saw Eirin floating a few meters away from him.

"I bet you have no idea what hit you just now!" the Lunarian doctor said to him in English.

Seeing that all she had was a bow, the Appellaxian thought he could easily deal with her. Just as he was closing in on her to catch her with his mouth, he suddenly felt a large amount of pain and also a burning feeling inside his body. The alien writhed in pain while hissing loudly, and Eirin said to him, "I fired an arrow tied with a capsule containing sulfuric acid, which is one of the things capable of dissolving mercury, into you, so now you're feeling lots of pain."

Fire and Reimu flew over to where the Appellaxian was, and Eirin smiled at them to let them know that she did what she wanted to do. Fire nodded with a smile before shooting a stream of fire at the Appellaxian, bringing even more pain to it. Exposure to fire combined with the sulfuric acid dissolving him from the inside made the Appellaxian more and more unable to maintain his form and even became smaller and smaller.

The Appellaxian shrunk to a very small size, and just before he was vaporized entirely, a trail of energy came out from the small puddle of mercury and changed into his true form at the sidewalk. He quickly got up and ran, but Reimu hit him with the face with a dive kick to knock him out on his back.

Fire and Eirin landed next to her, and the former gave the shrine maiden a thumb up for her job well done, to which she simply responded with a slight nod.

* * *

"Oh my!" Yuuka commented as the shadow of the towering Appellaxian taking the form of a tortoise compromised of various nature-related materials walked past her, not noticing her. Looking at him was almost like looking at the "World Turtle" found in certain mythologies and folklores.

He had a body, or shell, that was made from a combination of soil and rock, and it was like a piece of landmass in the way that there were trees and some other kinds of smaller plants growing out the top of it. His legs were made of wood and looked just like tree trunks, even having knotholes on them. His head was also made of wood, and the top of it was covered in moss.

As the massive Appellaxian, growing as tall as forty meters and having a width of about sixty meters, stomped across the countryside, sending the people and animals fleeing at the sight of him, Yuuka slowly walked alongside him at a close but safe distance, curious to see where such an imposing creature was heading to. "I didn't expect the outside world to have a demon like this!" she commented while looking up at him.

She followed and kept an eye on the Appellaxian as he made his way towards a house that had been deserted when the people living in there saw the alien coming from afar. The alien crushed the house underneath one of his tree trunk-like feet, either doing it on purpose or never noticing it in the first place. Yuuka didn't show looks of shock on her face at all, as she was never really someone who cared about other people and their properties' wellbeing, even going as far as not saving lives on purpose.

Yuuka continued to watch the Appellaxian continue on his way, and up ahead, one could see the sight of a city. If the Appellaxian wasn't going to change his direction, then it was obvious he was on his way there.

Just then, something that might hinder the alien's progress forward showed up in the form of a pickup truck carrying Cyborg, Atom Smasher, Marisa, Shou, Rin, and Youmu. The jeep stopped about half a kilometer away from the approaching alien, and then Cyborg said to the girls, "All right! Let's give him all we've got! No need to worry about accidentally killing him, because as long as the Appellaxian has a host body, he will not die! Destroying his host body will leave him with no choice but to reveal his true form, and then we will capture him before he escapes or finds another host body."

"Got it!" the four girls replied before getting off the jeep and approaching the alien at a fast speed.

Cyborg then turned to Atom Smasher and said to him, "You stay put. In case this plan doesn't work, it's your turn."

"Got it!" Atom Smasher said while punching his palm.

When Yuuka saw the girls, she was surprised. "Well! Sure didn't expect to see them here!"

As the four girls closed in on the Appellaxian, who didn't seem to be doing anything other than moving forward, Marisa said, "All right! Let's take down that thing with a bang and a bit of love!" Then she pointed her hands at the alien's head to fire a series of star-shaped projectiles. "Radial Strike!"

Rin leaped into the air with her limbs sprawled out as if she was jumping in excitement to make flaming skulls with clattering mouths appear out of thin air, and when she pointed her arms at the Appellaxian, they flew at him at a fast speed and headed for the "miniature forest" on his back. When the skulls came in contact with the trees, they set them on fire.

Shou raised her miniature pagoda into the air, and it took a few seconds to glow brightly before firing several laser beams that moved in curved trajectories at the alien, creating medium-sized explosions whenever they hit somewhere on his body.

While the Appellaxian was crying from getting blasted and having the trees on his back burned down, Youmu ran straight up one of his legs and then, after jumping off it while facing it, swung her larger sword horizontally once. Just like that, the leg was severed and came falling down like a tree cut by a woodcutter.

With one leg cut off, the alien struggled to stand properly, all the while enduring the projectiles being fired at him and the "forest fire" on his back. Youmu proceeded to go for the other legs using flight and did the same to them. Once all the remaining legs were cut off, she quickly flew away from him before he fell down on top of her. The alien hit the ground with a mighty belly flop that shook the earth quite a bit.

CRAAAAAAAAAAAASH!

"My! What are they doing to that poor thing?" wondered Yuuka, though she actually wasn't showing any concern or pity to the Appellaxian.

"Great going, girls!" Cyborg said to the four girls as they gathered around him. "Now sit back and watch a veteran do his job!" His shoulders opened up and fired several devices that flew towards the Appellaxian.

The alien suddenly withdrew his head and the remains of legs into his shell and started spinning at a fast speed. In doing so, he made the fire on his back fly all over the place, and the devices fired by Cyborg either got knocked out of the air by the flames or were repelled by the high-speed spinning. Everyone panicked and ran from the flames falling in their direction, but Rin didn't panic as much, even when one fell on her and spread all over her body.

When the Appellaxian stopped spinning, the fire on his back was more or less put out completely. He brought back out his head and legs, and the latter had returned to their original lengths. After standing back up, the alien let out a roar, while trees quickly grew from his back to replace the ones burned down.

"Uh oh… Didn't go as planned…" said Cyborg nervously.

"What are you people up to?" asked Yuuka as she walked over to them. They turned to see her, and the girls were surprised at the sight of her.

"Yuuka!" said Marisa.

"Where did you come from?" Youmu asked her.

"I've been following that demon," Yuuka replied. "I spent my time in a nearby village until…" Then she looked at the Appellaxian. "…that thing showed up."

"One of the people from your place?" Cyborg asked the girls, to which they responded by nodding. "Good to know that we found another one! But now isn't the time to celebrate! We have to stop that alien over there first! Can she help in any way?"

"You want me to help deal with that demon?" Yuuka asked as she looked at the alien again. "What is that thing and why are you people attacking it?"

"Long answer short: he's a monster that supposedly came back for revenge after getting beaten up by this guy and his friends a long time ago," Marisa told her while pointing at Cyborg with her thumb. "And this guy is one of the people who found out we're here and gathered us together so that we can somehow return to Gensokyo."

The Appellaxian let out another roar as he moved in their direction. Cyborg and the girls watched him approach, and the former said, "Let's save the explanation for some other time. We'll need to deal with him now!"

"Fine, I'll help," said Yuuka as she walked in the direction of the Appellaxian. "You owe me a clearer explanation for everything that's happening afterward, and also let me know if Kurumi and Elly are with you people."

"You can take on him alone?" Youmu asked her.

"Underestimate me, will you?" said Yuuka without turning her head. The demon walked toward the Appellaxian until she was about ninety meters away from him, and then she pointed her hand at him. When she flicked her hand upwards, thick vines suddenly burst out from the parts of the ground around his legs and wrapped themselves around them to keep him from moving forward. Even with his massive size, the Appellaxian wasn't able to tear the vines.

"Vines?! Is her power plant manipulation?" asked Cyborg in surprise.

"She's known as the flower demon, so what do you think?" Marisa asked him with a smile.

"All right! It's really my turn now! You just keep on holding him down with your vines, okay?" Atom Smasher said to Yuuka as he walked past her, though she didn't understand the language he was using. He suddenly grew in size as he flexed in arms, a feat that surprised the girls.

"Wow! He's just like Suika!" Marisa said in surprise.

Noticing that Atom Smasher was still very small compared to the Appellaxian, despite after growing in size, Shou asked, "Um… Is that the biggest he can grow? I don't think that's enough to take on that monster…"

"Oh, you better not be underestimating the strength he has!" Cyborg told her with a smile.

Atom Smasher let out a loud war cry as he ran towards the struggling Appelliaxian, and with a powerful punch to one of his legs, he shattered it into pieces like it was made of Styrofoam. He then headed for the rest of the legs and shattered them one by one. After destroying the last leg at the back, the Appellaxian cried out loud as his body fell down, but Atom Smasher didn't run away from underneath him. Instead, he quickly got as close as possible to the center and raised his hand to catch him. Mustering all his strength into his arms, the giant superhero raised the alien high over his head.

"Wow! He's strong!" exclaimed Marisa. "He'll definitely give Suika a run for her money! I think…"

Atom Smasher hurled the Appellaxian to the side in a way that made him land on his back.

CRAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAASH!

With a shout, he jumped onto the underside of the Appellaxian and punched the center of it hard to create a hole on it. Seeing this, Cyborg knew it was time for him to make his move. He used a jet pack that appeared out of his back to fly towards the Appellaxian at a fast speed. Landing on the alien's underside, he quickly ran for the hole created by Atom Smasher and then changed his hand into satellite-like device before pointing it into the hole. He then fired a very high frequency sound wave into it that caused the Appellaxian's body to shake uncontrollably. The shaking got stronger and stronger until cracks spread across the alien's body, and then he suddenly exploded.

KABOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOM!

Rocks, soil, leaves, and pieces of wood fell all over the place as Cyborg and Atom Smasher fell onto the ground and landed on their feet. Eventually, trails of energy came down not too far away from them and merged together to become the Appellaxian's true form. The alien got up and desperately ran from those two, but Cyborg used his arm as a grappling hook to catch him by the shoulder from afar and then pulled him back to him. "You're not going anywhere!" he said to the alien.

When the components that consisted of the Appellaxian's host body stopped raining down, the girls approached Cyborg and Atom Smasher, and Shou exclaimed, "We did it!"

"Yep! This is the result of teamwork!" said Cyborg, and then he noticed that Rin still had fire burning all over her body. "Um… Are you sure you're all right…?"

Confused, Rin asked, "What are you talking about? Of course I'm all right!"

* * *

Batman was still in the Hall of Justice, keeping his eyes on the screen that showed the footages of the various Appellaxian attacks and also Amazo's attack. It appeared that all the aliens were taken care of. The league members dealing with Amazo was doing a pretty fine job fighting the ability-copying android as well, and it seemed that they would defeat him very soon, which was quite a surprise, considering that he was a major threat and incredibly hard to deal with the last time they fought him.

Suddenly, another alarm went off, so Batman pressed the button that would let him find out what went wrong to bring up a new footage. His eyes widened upon seeing what the news report in that footage was reporting about. "I knew it!" he said.

* * *

TO BE CONTINUED

Let me make it clear to you now: to people who are expecting Rin Satsuki to have major roles in this story, be prepared to be VERY, VERY, VERY disappointed. I have ABSOLUTELY no plans for her to have any roles outside of occasionally name drops. She serves nothing more than a cameo appearance in this story to show that she exists in my series.

In fact, I have imagined her to show up in my previous Touhou stories already (starting with Evil by Nature), such as being seen in the background in certain scenes.

Will I ever give her a bigger role in my series? As of now, I have no plans, but who knows what the future may hold? Even so, I don't think I'll ever give her a notable role of any kind.

**Trivia:  
**1. This chapter is named after the DC comic series The Brave and the Bold, which is about different DC superheroes teaming up to fight crime. The Justice League was introduced there before getting its own series. However, the league's origin wasn't revealed until the ninth issue of its own series.


End file.
